VILLÁNY IN THE 20TH CENTURY

The 20th century in Villány began with replanting the vineyards. By 1914, the area under cultivation was the same size as it had been before the phylloxera. In the process, the growing methods were modernized and the standards of production raised, but World War I halted progress in its tracks.

One of the biggest blows that the War dealt to growers in Villány was the loss of the Délvidék, the country's southern provinces, which cut off the wine region from its traditional markets in Serbia and Croatia. The small estates and merchants found themselves in a predicament that was made even more hopeless by the wine surplus that materialized after the country shrank to one-third of its size, and by the economic crisis of the late 1920's. Wine prices were so low that the growers of Villány could not afford to pay for Teleki's grafts, choosing instead to plant unrooted cuttings. The upswing that set in during the thirties was due to the preparations for another war more than to anything else. Villány did make a progress with the profits on wine deliveries to the military, but the new conflagration brought consequences whose horror no one had foreseen.

Until the end of World War II, Villány was characterized by both small growers and large-scale cultivation by the aristocracy. The archducal estate continued in existence until its nationalization in the mid-forties. In the chapter dealing with the region's earlier history, we already explained the decisive role of modern estate farming starting from 1699, which set the example for simpler growers to follow in enriching and applying their knowledge. The archducal cellar and the press house were built in the early 1800's, under Archduchess Maria Christina.

It was her heir, Carl Louis, whose bottled Villányi wines landed as far as in New York and Brazil and, closer to home, in Vienna and Styria. We have already discussed die grape-growing practices of die estate under Archduke Albrecht. In light of these historical facts, there can be no doubt that the nationalization in 1945 of Prince Frederick's entail amounted to eliminating an estate that had elevated the entire wine region to much higher standards of production.

The archducal estate operated side by side with a number of other farms and domains of varying size. We have described the course run by the Teleki Vineyards, from its inception, through a period of prosperity, to its eventual demise. Also worthy of mention was the sparkling wine manufactory established in 1912 by the Schaumburg-Lippe ducal estate, and constructed right next to the main estate building. The manufactory rose to national popularity with its sparkling called Cremant Rose. During World War I, however, the duke moved to South America and sold the facility to the Hungarian-Italian Bank. The factory was purchased from the bank by the Littke family, who in turn passed it on to the Teleki Vineyards after the sparkling wine license had ceased in effect.

Another owner of extensive vineyards was Alfred Montenuovo, the proprietor of the former Batthyány Estate, who furnished his winery in the Batthyány cellar in the village of Villánykövesd. In addition to these larger domains and estates, the wine merchants also had a significant share in grape-growing and wine production throughout Villány. Commerce declined after World War I, with a 50-percent decrease of employment in the wine trade sector, notwithstanding the propitious location of Villány at the intersection of several thoroughfares and railroad branches where the hills meet with the plain. Despite the vicissitudes, wine merchant dynasties such as the Schuth, Spritzer, Schwabach, Proksch and Fürst families continued to do considerable business.

The medals, awards, and sign-board of Vilmos Schuth, the noted wine merchant, from the late 19th century

The wine of Villány found its way across the border once again, but the world-wide economic depression ruined many merchants. This was a terrible blow to the relatively young wine trade in the region, which had not really embarked on a path of development until the 1850's and 1860's. At that time, the merchant families built huge cellars, and began to buy wine in bulk from the locals and from other regions. Villány eventually emerged as a major center of wine trade, with 80 merchants doing business in its heyday.

The merchants of Villány garnered numerous prizes and medals at various fairs and competitions. Prominent among them were Wilhelm and Vincennes Schuth, both in terms of the turnover they handled and the awards they received. Wilhelm Schuth hailed from Rauenthal, in the area of Wiesbaden. Holding a letter of recommendation from the Duke of Passau, in 1866 he arrived at the grand estate in Villány. A few years later he was already renting the cellar from the Archduke, and set about dealing in wines on his own means. Wine trade must have been a rather profitable business back then, because by 1890 Schuth built a main cellar nave 70 meters long by 5.5 meters wide, a number of smaller wings for various purposes (including one for brandy, another for fermenting wine, and a third for maturing bottled wines), and could even afford to raise a wonderful mansion in front of the cellar. (The buildings of other wine merchants, such as the Spritzer House or the cellar of Conrad Fürst, today doing service as Zoltán Polgár's wine deposit vault, are also among the most treasured architectural gems in Villány.) Schuth's success was documented by the diplomas and medals he gathered from England to Australia. He attended the Paris World Fair and won the title "Purveyor of Wines to the Royal Court of Hungary." He bought wine from almost every one of the country's wine regions, which he proceeded to bottle himself after the treatment and maturation he deemed appropriate. The high quality standards Schuth observed were evidenced by the fact that he delivered his bottles wrapped in tissue paper and straw matting, neatly arranged in wooden boxes.

In 1914, at the age of 70, Wilhelm Schuth took out a liberty loan for die price of 20 wagons of wine, bankrupting the company and vaporizing most of the family fortune. By the time his son, Henrik Schuth, returned from the front, there were only the ruins of a once splendid wealth for him to inherit. Today, the neglected cellar is a rather depressing sight, a grounds where the latter-day offspring of the Schuths practice tennis and target shooting. Having fallen out of use, the cellar and the winemaking tools are edging closer to decay. Their eventual ruin seems inevitable, unless one of the sons or grandchildren of Henrik Schuth-who served the village for decades as a dentist and general practitioner-takes the renewed opportunity of free enterprise and decides to return to his ancestors' profession. The still numerous small growers and the entire wine region of Villány badly need a skilled person in the wine wholesale business who knows what he is doing.

Between the two world wars, a number of growers bottled their own wine, in addition to the estates and the wine merchants Schuth and Jantsis. One of the best-known cellars, located in the village center, belonged to Jakó Gyimóthy of Nagyréth and Kisgyimóth. Today it is the property of Sterntal Kft. (The Gyimóthy Mansion on the Harsány side of the hill hosts participants in the annual inter­national meet of sculptors.) The Gyimóthy Winery bottled not only dry reds, but also white wines, including a botrytis Riesling selection, and even botrytis red wines made from estate-grown fruit. Before Gyimothy, naturally sweet reds affected by noble rot had been known as the specialty from Ménes in Transylvania (today in Romania). Gyimóthy's Kadarka Aszú then became famous as a unique delicacy from Villány.

The decades following Worid War II brought appalling changes in the life of Villány. Some of the ethnic German residents were found guilty and sentenced to deportation. The exiles had to endure inhuman conditions under deportation, the pain of having to start anew, and a sense of homelessness that haunted them for decades. Those who stayed suffered a severe downturn economically and socially, and were confined to using their mother tongue among themselves. The void left by the deportations was filled by new setders, mostly impoverished domestic servants from Eastern Hungary (the Nyírség, Csanád County, and the village of Józsa near Debrecen) and, to a lesser extent, by well-to-do Hungarian farmers displaced from the Felvidék (the northern parts of Hungary before they were annexed to Czechoslovakia) and the Csallóköz, an area stretching between two branches of the Danube north of today's Hungarian border. Since few of these new settlers knew much of anything about cultivating vines, many of them went bankrupt or at least became severely indebted.

Autumn fog rolls into the Remete vineyard

The central policy of enforcing communist industrial structures did not allow individual enterprise to continue much longer. In 1945, vineyard the government laid its hands on the Teleki Vineyards, the Montenuovo Estate and the Albrecht Estate, and used the acquired assets to establish a School of Viticulture and Oenology, and a State Farm producing grafts. The first cooperative to have been created in the area, under the name of Új Alkotmány ("New Constitution''), is still in business today after a series of mergers and attempts at reorganization. In 1949, the campaign of nationalization hit the MEGA Winery that operated in the cellar of Conrad Fust, the prominent wine merchant. The winery continued as the Mecsek-region plant of the Hungarian National Cellars. In 1961, the state farms in Beremend, Siklós, and Villány fused to become the Villány- Siklós State Farm. This unit engulfed the wineries and in 1978 evolved into the Villány-Siklós Vertical Wine Works, renamed PANNONVIN in 1984. It was this operation whose Villány outfit recast itself in 1992 as Szőlő-Bor Kft. ("The Grape and Wine Company"), most recently known as Villányi Borászat Rt. ("Villány Winery, Inc.").

The above list affords a sense of the extent to which industrial farming methods defined Villány for four decades. During the fifties, in the early days of the planned economy, the Villány State Farm was a national leader in propagation material output, red wine production, and in training professionals. Among the noted viticulturists and winemakers who worked at the State Farm at various times, we must mention József Bakonyi, Dr. Endre Báló , Dr. József Eifert, László Heiner, József Katona, József Kauder, András Lakatos, Pál Leidinger, Sándor Pettenkoffer, and Imre Wéber. As vindication of the modern approach they brought to vinification and handling, 14 of the 26 wines nominated by the State Farm collected medals at the 1958 International Wine Competition in Budapest. This performance was unheard of among the Hungarian red wine producers of the day. As for the growers of our time, they may find it interesting to study the parameters of those award-wining wines: their average sugar-free extract weighed in at 34-36 g/1, but some measured as high as 44-46.5 g/1! Of course, we are not trying to imply that the era of planned economy did not have its problems. Under the land reform, some of the vineyards were divided among farmers unskilled in the business of growing grapes. The condition of the vines deteriorated, and the standards of cultivation plummeted. The Kopár, the splendid vineyard that used to yield the best wine in Villány, was devoted to the large-scale growing of sugar peas.

In a study written in 1958, Ferenc Pólya remonstrated that "the vines at the foot of the famous southern slope of the Hars á ny were sacrificed on the altar of a vegetable en primeur, even though this is perhaps the most exquisitely situated wine-growing site on the entire hill..."

In the process of converting the smaller lots into large, contiguous tracts that could be cultivated by industrial methods, the State Farm demolished many press houses and altered the visual aspect of the land significantly. Sadly, even Villány could not remain immune to the absurd experiment, proposed by the Communist Party, of growing lemon in such a northern location. However, the citrus grove that got planted was soon declared to be "reactionary" on account of its refusal, in flagrant disregard of the Party's will, to produce anything but stunted, inedible fruit. As another disgrace of the New Era, the unrivaled treasure of Teleki's collection of varieties was simply eradicated.

What vines remained in private ownership by the late fifties were far past their prime, and the lots often had yawning gaps in them.

At this time, the most wide-spread variety was already the Kékoportó , which had displaced the Kadarka from its near monopoly and now amounted to 75 to 80% of all the varieties planted. The Kékoport ó achieved predominance in Villány in a process that had started in the second half of the 18th century. In the 19th century, it was planted in mixed rows with Kadarka and Olaszrizling. The renowned Villányi parasztsiller, a rustic, Clairet-like cuvée somewhere between white and red, was a blend of these three grapes. Interestingly, Ferenc Pólya in his 1958 thesis describes the Kékoport ó as a vigorous, early variety that ripens reliably by mid-September, typically with a sugar degree between 18 and 20. In those days, the Kékoportó was appreciated for its softness of texture, deep red color, and high alcohol content, but most growers regarded it as better suited for blending with Kadarka to impart color than for making a solo varietal wine. It is equally instructive to quote Pólya's expert study, written before the introduction of high cordon training, on Kadarka, the formerly prevalent grape of Villány that had been brought to the region before the Kékoportó . "Kadarka is a grape of vigorous growth that is not finicky about the soil it is planted in. It requires both short and long spur pruning to produce good quality. It is a late variety that ripens its large, juicy berries in the second half of October. Its sensitivity to rot makes it rather demanding with respect to the situation of the vineyard. Traditionally, Kadarka used to be harvested from late October to mid-November, with typical sugar degrees ranging from 18.5 to 21.7."

"In one case, the exceptionally high value of 27 degrees was registered. Kadarka makes an excellent, spicy red wine with an unmistakable flavor. In good years, it is distinguished enough to accompany the finest roast, but in lesser years it can be quite inferior. At its best, Kadarka could hardly be surpassed in terms of fullness and harmony of flavor."

The two varieties of Kékoportó and Kadarka were supplemented by Kékfrankos, Hárslevelű , and Medoc Noir. In the varietal structure maintained by the State Farm in 1958, the various red wine grapes were represented as follows:

In the same period, the vineyards west of the Szársomly ó formed the largest uninterrupted growing site in the wine region. These tracts, closer to Siklós and Máriagyüd, were primarily devoted to the white varieties of Bánáti Rizling, Olaszrizling, and Hárslevelű Red wine grapes accounted for no more than 25 to 30% of the varieties cultivated in the vicinity of Siklós, and a mere 6 to 8% at Máriagyüd. The vines occupied the traditional growing locations on the slopes. Except on the higher plateaus, vines were not yet planted in the flat parts and meadowlands on or below the "skirt" ot the hills. In those days, even the Olaszrizling was still pruned to the single bud, as it had been in 1830, when Ferenc Schams gave a report on his visit to Villány. The State Farm of Villány - merged with that of Sikl ó s and Beremend in 1961. Although the industrialization of the vineyards had begun in the fifties, at the time of the merger only 3.5% of the total area had been planted with the wide row spacing of three meters. The varietal Structure changed due to a drastic reduction of the share of Kadarka, and to the concomitant preference for Kékoportó.

In the early sixties, when the large-scale modernization of the traditional vineyards began in Hungary, a number of training methods coexisted still. One of them was a form of horned head training that boasted a long-standing historic tradition in the Villány-Siklós area.

This was practiced side by side with Guyot and cordon training in all of its versions (low, middle-high, and high). In the mid-sixties, the authorities obviously saw the future in developing the State Farm.

They set the goal of bringing a total of 2,500 hectares under cultivation, on which ultimately 30,000 hectoliters of red and 20,000 hectoliters of white wine were to be produced.

In those days, even the Olaszrizling was valued much more highly than it is today. In 1964, Ede Tiff á n insisted that "in Siklós, the Olaszrizling delivers such a high performance that it makes a claim for these hills to be ranked among the best white wine regions in the whole country. The grape here achieves a roundness of flavor and refinement of acidity that are practically unrivaled elsewhere. In addition, it has an average yield of 3 to 3.2 tons per hectare, and the ability to ripen with a sugar degree of 23 to 24." Reading this account, one feels tempted to ask the question: Just how far have we come from these parameters today-and in which direction? One thing is certain: when Ede Tiffán wrote these lines as a graduating senior majoring in horticulture, the Olaszrizling was still cultivated with the horned head training method that had been traditional in the region.

The Szársomlyó , rearing behind the village of Nagyharsány, retains heat like a stove

The conversion of the vineyards, starting in 1962-63, into widely spaced rows of vines trained on the high cordon served the interests of mechanized farming, reduced costs, increased yields, and less manual work. It is fascinating to interrogate the history of viticulture in Villány as it was documented in university theses. Those submitted in the fifties and in the early sixties, while traditional training methods still dominated in the area, speak about harvests with average sugar degrees of 21 and 22. By 1973, Antal Konrád had no better news to report than that of a Kékoportó harvested with 16.5 to 17.4 degrees, compared to the 18-21 degrees cited by Pólya (1958) and the 22-23 mentioned by Tiffán (1964). The drop in sweetness was even more striking with Kadarka, which settled on an average of 21.7 degrees in Pólya' time, and from there it plummeted to 15.4 to 15.9 degrees as harvested by the State Farm in the early seventies. It was probably these unconscionably low sugar degrees that led the State Farm to uproot the famous Csillagvölgy vineyard in 1973. The message of the figures is confirmed by the narrative parts of these studies. One of them describes Kékoportó as "a variety incapable of better than middling quality, no matter how great the vintage, although its color is always satisfactory, except in the very worst years. It is an early-ripening grape that is prone to rot." Disgracefully, it was in Villány, potentially the best red wine district in all of Hungary, that the death sentence was pronounced on Kadarka, which had been the most widely planted red wine grape in Hungary for three centuries: "Kadarka is far from being a trouble-free grape variety. It has an objectionable degree of vulnerability to rot, and its poor quality renders it unsuitable for making red wine. Scaling back its role in production is recommended."

As we have seen, this "scaling back" was carried out successfully. I do not wish to pick a fight with the above assessment, but I would like to point out that, for centuries, Villány and Szekszárd had this grape to thank for their Europe-wide reputation.

If things went wrong somewhere along the way, I don't think that Kadarka should take all the blame. The quantity-minded approach, the indifference of eastern markets, the unreasonable loading of the vines, the ill-advised choices of growing locations, the short-sighted management of the soil's resources, and the one-sided application of technology all contributed to the erosion of quality during the era of planned economy. These same circumstances consigned the Ezerjó , the wonderful grape of the Mór region, to a similar fate.

It would be a mistake to believe that the market today only wants to have its international varieties. On the contrary, there is an increasing demand for unique, characteristic products, which we value all the more highly for having edged closer to the melting pot of Europe. The history of viticulture in Hungary teaches us that our forebears always found the best training method and the best growing location for each grape variety. We should follow the same line of thinking. Instead of looking for the right grape to subject to a rigidly conceived technology, we ought to seek the most advantageous training methods and growing locations that could enhance the quality of certain rare varieties unique to Hungary or the Carpathian Basin.

Speaking of the choice of growing location, let us repeat that prior to 1958, the vines were planted on the slopes, where they traditionally belong. It was only in the wake of industrial-scale planting that the cadastre began to be constantly readjusted to accommodate vineyards planted in the plain or on the skirt of the hills.

By 1977,689 hectares out of the 911 cultivated by the Villány-Siklós State Farm occupied level ground, with the rest planted as follows:

In 1978, the Villány-Mecsek Foothills Vertical Wine Works cultivated a total of 952 hectares, with the following composition of varieties:

As the newly planted vineyards began to bear fruit, the advocates of industrial methods glimpsed another criterion for "varietal preference" in the possible timing of the harvest. The State Farm sought to eliminate the dangers inherent in an intense labor peak by beginning to harvest early. In 1977, for instance, the Kékoportó harvest was under way at the State Farm by August 31. For the sake of comparison, let us recall that workers at the Bellye Estate had not normally started to pick the Kékoportó before the middle of October. Between August 31 and September 30, the period during which the State Farm harvested the grape in several waves, must degrees escalated from 14.6 to 18.7!

The change in the varietal composition in Villány's vineyards can be traced through the 1980's as well. Kadarka still survived (if only on 3.5% of the total area under cultivation), and records indicate significant new plantations of Merlot, Zweigelt, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Kékfrankos. Red wine grapes had begun to gain ground in the Siklós district as well. In 1985, Márta Kocsis reported twelve-year average parameters for the K é koportó as harvested by the State Farm from 1973 through 1984, including a yield of 11.68 tons per hectare and a sugar degree of 14.9. No wonder that the Kékoportó regularly needed improvement by blending. The Kadarka averaged a yield of 6.76 tons per hectare, with a sugar degree of 15.0.

The Kékfrankos produced somewhat better quality (5.7 t/ha, 16.8 degrees), while the Cabernet Franc (6.46 t/ha, 18.4 degrees) and the Cabernet Sauvignon (5.79 t/ha, 18.3 degrees) did significantly better. These figures made it obvious that, planted in widely spaced rows and trained on the high cordon, only the international varieties were capable of satisfactory results. Consequently, it made sense to plant more of the two Cabernets. However, the interests of maintaining Villány's competitiveness in the future will dictate the involvement of other varieties in production. Planted more densely in the best sites and trained on the low cordon, these grapes should most importantly include those that would lend themselves to developing a set of wines unique to Villány. I think that the time is ripe for Villány to make such a move for defning itself. At least this is the direction that seems to emerge from the answers of the growers when they are asked about their plans for the future.

These days, the visitor to Villány is greeted by the reassuring view of hillsides on which not a single plot of suitable land goes uncultivated-a sight we would look for in vain in otherwine regions, including the Balaton Highlands, Pannonhalma-Sokoróalja, or the Bükk Foothills. The verdant ridges praise the work of the growers who continue to cherish their traditions. Especially striking in its visual impact is the vista of several hundred hectares of vineyard, speckled by hardly a building here and there, that opens up from Fekete-hegy west of the Szársomlyó , in the area of Nagyharsány, Kisharsány, and Nagytótfalu.

In the chapter on the region's history, we frequently quoted accolades for the beauty of the vine hill of Villány. Well, the hill is indeed an enchanting sight with its press houses, but the country- planning engineer who always contemplates a landscape as a process will not fail to take note of the lurking threats to all that wonder. Villány would do well to learn from the example of towns like Szekszard or the nearby Pécs, where some of the best growing sites irretrievably fell victim to the expanding city limits. Residential Villány has claimed an increasingly large chunk of the vine hills. The process has accelerated over the past century, with new construction blanketing the Templom-hegy and the southern section of the Goldberg, which used to yield wine so precious that it was compared to gold. The old maps, the routing of the streets, and the position of the backyards make it apparent that the construction of the village always followed along the roads criss-crossing the old vineyards. This process is still going on today. My heart sinks when I see the multi­ story homes, most of them marked by a lack of good taste, that have mushroomed among the old press houses and vines overlooking the road to Harsány. And I am shocked by the narrow-mindedness with which someone put the stamp on a paper licensing the building of a multi-story structure on the corner of Diófási Square, which disrupts the uniform style of the entire cellar row there.

Wine means nothing less than the past, present, and future for Villány. For this reason, development must be subordinated to the interests of wine production. The harmony of the cellar row should be restored immediately. If progress demands new wineries to be built, these should be banned from the uniquely gifted growing sites and relegated to the easily accessible area near the town, below the road to Harsány. Specific regulations would be needed to provide for the limits of construction on the vine hills, in order to prevent multi­story buildings that stick out of their surroundings like a sore thumb and are completely alien to the local traditions in their shape and function (e.g. summer cottages).

It is to be hoped that the fundamental changes of the past decade and a half and the rise of family-owned wineries, together the region's rekindled reputation and wine prices that are remarkably high by Hungarian standards, will succeed in putting a brake on the proliferation of vacation homes in the vineyards. Irrespective of the prevailing market conditions, it would be a good idea to strictly regulate the use of first class land under the vine cadastre, not only in measures adopted by the wine district but also in the local rules governing construction and community development.