After his studies in computer science, István started his own IT company and worked happily long hours for his growing business. Only when he moved to Italy because of his girlfriend's studies, he realized he wanted a different lifestyle and began to reconnect with nature. Back in Hungary, he started to look for a small parcel and found a 0.3-hectare plot. He did immediately start to farm organic and switched to biodynamic in 2014. The winery grew, and he would make better conventional wine until he met natural wine king Ewald Tscheppe in Austria and decided to go full in and make wines without filtration and sulfur. Zsolt Sütö of Strekov 1075 helped him along the way, and now he farms 18 hectares. He focuses on native grape varieties and owns one of the last plots of Bakator in Hungary.
Riesling is one of the grape varieties which expresses the terroir the best. And this is no exception. Part of the grapes come from a unique plot named 'Templomdombi' and are a blend of different single-vineyard leftovers. After the harvest, they are foot stomped and then pressed as whole clusters. Fermentation happened in various amphoras and a big Slavonian oak barrel. This Riesling was allowed to undergo complete malolactic conversion for a rounder and more textural iteration of the variety than what one might know from Germany. It aged in those vessels for 10 months on the lees (deposits of dead yeast or residual yeast and other particles that precipitate). This wine hits you with a Jura kind of nose, slightly smoky, and lemon zest aromas. In the mouth, you get unripe peach and more lemon juice. This pairs well with Vietnamese food or a seasonal mushroom risotto.