Villány Wine Tasting
ZoOm Hungary

The area of Villány, the community that gave its name to the region, has been populated since prehistoric times. The stone utensils and earthenware found in the quarry on Templom-hegy above the village, and the Bronze Age objects-pick-axes and spearheads-excavated in the vicinity, bear testimony to an advanced early civilization.

The last of the ancient people to have settled in the Villány area were the Celts. Grape seed finds elsewhere in the country have led researchers to conclude that the Celts already cultivated vines in the Carpathian Basin. This makes it quite reasonable to assume that grape-growing in Villány goes back to Celtic times. It was certainly under Roman supervision that wine production began to burgeon in the parts that make up Baranya County today.

During the Magyar Conquest, Villány became one of the first permanent encampments. With the foundation of the Hungarian Kingdom it presumably became crown property. The Ottoman tax registers and other documents show that wine production in the region survived for a while even under the yoke of the Islamic administration.

The arrival of the Germans meant a turning point in Villány's viticulture not only because of their expertise and industrious habits, but also because they brought with them the Portugieser variety, known in Hungarian then as Oportó, today as Kékoportó.

The boom could be seen in the way press houses and cellars were built. Most of the serfs, who did not own a cellar on the hill, collected the harvested grapes in huge vats, which they hauled on wagons to the cellars located on the outskirts of the village. The cellar row as a construction pattern is typical of German communities in Hungary. Its most wonderful specimens are found in Villány and its vicinity, including Villánykövesd and Palkonya. First built here around 1760, these rows consisted of buildings combining the functions of the press house and the cellar. They served as a place for processing and vinifying the grapes, as well as for handling, aging, and tasting the finished wine. The "harvest wagon," widely encountered in other Hungarian wine regions as well, remained in general use he re until the middle of the 20^th century.

Wine tasting with a fine dining experience is the perfect way to discover Villány and its fabulous wines.