A wine from Villány finally ! And not just a random winery this time we will be talking about Malatinszky !

I will try to cover as much as I know about the winery and the wine but oh boy there is so much to say about this one!

Now where to start ? Let us talk about the wine maker his name is Csaba Malatinszky he was Hungary’s first sommelier and was working in the all famous restaurant Gundel till 1991. After that he was the first person in whole Hungary (!) to open a specialist wine shop and the first one to bring new small casks to Villány, and last but definitely not less important he was also the first to bottle unfiltered wine in Hungary much like the French do. He had a very particular impression of the Bordeaux region in France and it’s said that he makes his wines much like the wineries in Bordeaux. Many people say he is not making original Hungarian wine cause since 2009 he makes organic wines. It is said by famous people like Caroline Gilby (she has a column in Decanter) that ” Csaba Malatinszky must have Cabernet Franc coursing through his veins” , she was probably not far off since he calls the Cabernet Franc the wine of harmony. I don’t know for sure about this part but I think it’s also sort of his ”signature” wine, if you visit Malatinszky’s winery there is a possibility to taste a selection called ” Tour de Franc” It’s a selection of only Cabernet Franc from 2003-2009 (site might be outdated).

Malatinszky makes 3 grades of wines which I will explain a bit better so it becomes all clear.

The first one is called ” Le Sommelier” and it’s the normal standard entry level.

The second one is called ” Nobless” the premium selection, seen in the more classy restaurants already.

And the third one is called ” Kúria” the super premium selection, seen in the classy and above restaurants, the best wine made by the winery only by specific grapes from the specific hills.

I had the Kékfrankos from the ” Le Sommelier” range, and I must say this was a really elegant wine already, I bought this wine in Spar for less than 9 euros. It’s very hard to find Malatinszky in normal shops, they do have an own shop in Budapest, I will add the link below to google maps below since there is no separate webpage for the shop. It’s very close to the touristic center so it’s worth a visit if you got the time.

Now a bit about the wine itself 2008 was a great wine year for Villány, I honestly forgot why but I have a 5 star next to the year in my note book, I will figure it out later ! This grape has hints of wine made in the Burgundy, it’s fruity and at the same time very lively. When you smell the wine you can really detect the red fruits and maybe a little hint of tobacco. The taste is rather complex and again you find the fruits back in it, a very elegant wine.

The link to the webpage of Malatinszky is here, note it’s in Hungarian. And for wine tastings you have to be with 8 people at least. If you scroll down you can find some shops and restaurants that server their wines, some of them are the 1 star restaurants in Budapest called Costes, Onyx and Borkonyha.

This is the link to their webshop on Google Maps.