Long weekend with wine and peppers – Hungarian Villany

Here we are in Hungary! An ideal destination for a long weekend car trip. Prices are affordable, the distance possible to do in one or two days (depending on the driver’s and car’s stamina). We already knew Hungary, mainly from our wine trips to  Eger and Tokaj. Last time, while I was pregnant and Maks was to be born in two months’ time, we also flew to Budapest – Lot airlines had great connections to our “cousins” as the Polish proverb says — departure on Friday after work, flight back on Sunday evening! Check if they still offer such connections!

This time we decided to go to the southern Hungary. A small city of Villany (2,500 inhabitants) close to the Croatian border is the best place to stay. It’s 1,100 km from Warsaw and it took us 8 hours to drive there. We arrived at the destination around 3 am on Thursday night… What welcomed us, was a sleeping town and keys to our rooms, left hidden in a desk on the patio of Polgar Panzio guesthouse.

On Thursday morning we welcomed Villany, a centre of the surrounding wine region. The region is one of the most valued in Hungary, even though it’s not too big (30 km). It is famous for its red wines. Their quality comes from the great climate (the hottest region of Hungary), from 350 years of tradition and from great winemakers. Even though Villany is quite small, you’ll find many wineries in charming little houses and dozens of amazingly good restaurants.

Villany is surrounded in beautiful green areas with kilometres of grapes growing everywhere. The best way to see the views is to take a “not so legal” walk through the vineyards. A bit risky, but the views are remarkable!

The history of winemaking in Villany dates back to 1740, when the German settlers came there. In the 19^th century, wines of Villany were already famous among European aristocracy. Unfortunately, the communism times (as you can imagine) weren’t gracious for the winemakers – the Germans were expelled from Hungary and the authorities cared more about quantity than quality and they planted the grapes so they can be cultivated using machinery. The renaissance of winemaking came in 1990 thanks to producers such as Bock, Polgar, Tiffan and Gere.

Knowing the wine character of the Villany area, we settled in a vineyard – Polgar Panzio, owned by Zoltan Polgar, one of the top winemakers. Polgar, who won the title of Hungarian Winemaker of the year in 1996, runs the vineyard with his wife Katalin.

The guesthouse (this label is more adequate than a hotel) offers cosy rooms with a decent breakfast. Even though this time we came here without Maks, we noticed a small playground and a nice kids’ corner.

Being there, we just had to see amazingly spacious cellar full of large old barrels with maturing wine… It’s good to listen to a local guide and taste some wines from Mr Polgar’s cellar. If you’re lucky, you may meet one the most awarded winemakers in Hungary during your visit or while having a dinner later on… We did! 🙂

Other winemakers worth remembering are Attila Gere and József Bock.

Gere same as Polgar, is not only a vineyard but also a hotel and Mandula restaurant – this one’s very high quality, not far from the culinary top in French Saint Emilion. The duck’s liver is mind blowing and we’ll talk more about other specialties served in Mandula in our next posts.

József Bock and his wines seem to be the most popular. You’ll find them in the restaurants in the area and in Hungarian restaurants in Poland. His wines are worth trying and same goes for his restaurant.

The culinary level of Villany came to us as a surprise. Most of the places we visited in Hungary before, were serving tasty, yet very simple and homespun food. Villany was on the other hand exquisite, stylish and elegant. What we liked most, was Bock’s cuisine – delicious, Hungarian and exquisite at the same time. We spent two nights there – it was enjoyable, tasty and obviously with lots of great wine.

When it comes to starters, marinated peppers served with cottage cheese is one of the best shots. Just perfect on a hot day. Also a typical Hungarian meal – goose liver – served cold, in a small pot that reminded us of grandma’s kitchen…

One other interesting idea was little pearls, called the “wine caviar” served with a salmon. It wasn’t as good as the amazing peppers or liver though.

We chose a selection of diverse main courses. I liked both the venison goulash with peppers galuska, a meal that brings back my memories about Hungarian cuisine, and when it comes to a smaller hunger, I went mad for the goat’s cheese with spicy potatoes. An unusual combination, yet very simple and tasty.

Łukasz liked the Mangalitsa-chop in particular, a pork chop from Mangalica pigs from preventive breeding, popular in Hungary, served with spicy baked peppers sauce. He didn’t like the veal with xerocomus mushrooms that much, but the potato and spinach purée made it quite a special meal.

The menu also includes white meat, lamb, a variety of steaks (staring with little ones – 10o grams and ending with giant ones weighing as much as 1 kg!) and fish. Something for everybody with all meals being the same high quality.

And now, the desserts…  You can go for something classic and “mine” such as chocolate soufflé with raspberry sauce or something more original such as cottage cheese dumpling with chocolate cream and blueberry sauce. The cheese ball in crispy breading was an absolute bull’s eye and we all loved it! What’s weird is that it was even better than the soufflé! A combination of delicate and a bit sour cheese, crispy and sweet breading, Nutella-like chocolate and blueberry sauce really blew us away!

Apart from culinary pleasures, Bock obviously offers lots of wines. Here you’ll find both some intriguing rose wines as well as delicious red ones. These are worth trying and taking back to Warsaw as the prices are quite good – starting with PLN 20 for a bottle. There’s something for real connoisseurs as well – bottles that cost PLN 300 each. The prices of food range from HUF 900 to 4000, which is around PLN 14, (e.g. for delicious marinated peppers) to PLN 60. The desserts cost around HUF 700 – 800 which is around PLN 12. Is it worth it? For sure!

Southern Hungary is of course not only Villany… some other places in the area are worth visiting, but we’ll get to that next time. Now we’re saying “good night!” and recharging our batteries before the trip Villany-Warsaw with stops on the way in Eger and Tokaj!

So we’re saying “Egeszsegedre!” which means “Cheers!”!