MUSEUM VIII

Personal opinion:

After Socialism ended, and after the change of the system, state farms were replaced by corporations and private businesses. You can discover the remaining bottles of outstanding quality from these companies. Corporations used the sites, machines and plantations of Socialist co-ops. The cultivation of plantations that were privatized started at this time. However, they could not produce great results, initially. Bottling wines was already possible for new small wineries but only the bigger companies were able to produce sufficient quantities for export.
These wines were bottled with the aim of exporting them. As far as I know these made it to the Vatican, the White House in Washington D.C. and the Kremlin in Moscow, etc.

Information:
We do not re-bottle or re-label the Museum wines - we offer them in their original bottles with the original content and original label.
The product picture shows the bottle that remained in the best condition for the sake of recognizability. The product inventory shows the number of bottles that remained intact. Unfortunately, not all the labels are undamaged! Therefore it may happen that the label is damaged (torn, worn or mouldy).

About the Szürkebarát variety:

The Szürkebarát is related to Pinot Blanc and Pinot Noir that are less common in Hungary. Originally, it was probably a mutant clone of the Pinot Noir. It arrived in Hungary around 1300.
Its canes are of medium strength, thin, purplish-grey and vevety, while its clusters are small, cylindrical, and very packed. Its wine is rich in aromas and extracts and has fine acids. It is a slowly developing variety in Hungary. They make semi-sweet white wines from it but as the skin of its greyish-white berries has a reddish colour, lighter rosé wines can also be produced from it. Sometimes they use it to make noble rot-based wines. In Hungary it ripens in the second half of September, and it is mainly common in the Badacsony, Mátraalja and Balaton Uplands wine regions.

The region and its history:

In the Badacsony area, vines were grown in Roman times, and Emperor Probus had sizeable plantings here. At the time of the settlement of the Magyars in Hungary they already knew about vines and wine. They appreciated areas capable of growing vine. A significant part of the wine region was taken over by the church in the 13th century. In the 18th-19th century the Badacsony vermouth gained a similar reputation to that of the Tokaj aszú in Europe.
During the reconstruction after the phylloxera epidemic, supporting walls were built to prevent soil erosion. New varieties also entered the area. The Szürkebarát was introduced from France by monks. Due to the special soil content it evolved into a typical local variety, the Szürkebarát, which botrytises in good years.
The variety grown in the biggest amount is Olaszrizling that is in better years ripened on the stock longer, and is used to make ice wine or late-harvest hand-selected Olaszrizling. Szürkebarát, Tramini, Sárga muskotály, Rajnai rizling and Chardonnay are also present on the larger lands.
Kéknyelű or " Blue Stem" used to be a characteristic wine of the region. It was significantly confined by the frost damage of the 1980's but is experiencing a revival today, and will be an emblematic wine of the Badacsony region again in the near future.
Badacsony wines are typically full-bodied, fiery, aromatic and mineralized. Traditional wine-making and maturation in wooden barrels are characteristic. Although reductive wine-making and other modern technologies are also spreading, they have not significantly changed the character of the region's wine, yet.

Climate and geography:

Badacsony is the highest mountain in the Tapolca Basin; it stands between two bays of Lake Balaton. The circumference of the almost round mountain is 11km, the diameter of its top region slightly elongated in the north-south direction is 1-1.5km, its highest point is 437.4 metres above sea level. Its hillside is covered up to 280 metres by various loose deposits that are excellent for growing vine, and its soil is basalt-based loess. It is covered by various loose deposits, Pannon clay and Pannon loess, above which there are basalt rocks. Its climate is mild and balanced with high humidity. Because of the proximity of Lake Balaton the southern hills can also enjoy the sunshine reflected from the surface of the water, and therefore there is a very beneficial microclimate that makes the making of natural dessert wine possible.
The wine region includes the vine cadastre-based first and second class border sections of the following settlements: Ábrahámhegy, Badacsonytomaj, Badacsonytördemic, Balatonrendes, Balatonszepezd, Diszel, Gyulakeszi, Hegymagas, Káptalantóti, Kisapáti, Kővágóörs, Nemesgulács, Raposka, Révfülöp, Salföld, Szigliget, Tapolca.

NAME: MUSEUM VIII

YEAR: 1994

VARIETY: Szürkebarát

WINE REGION: Badacsony

CLASS: Quality medium sweet white wine

Product of Hungary

Bottle volume: 750ml

Alc. 12%vol

Contains sulphites