Hungarian wine culture is characterised by diversity, originality, and uniqueness. The country’s six wine-producing areas, including the diverse wine styles of the 22 wine districts, tell numerous stories, personified and recounted most authentically by the individual winemakers themselves.
Etyek Wine Region
If you want to know a bit more about Hungarian winemaking you don’t have to leave Budapest. Etyek, one of the most charming wine regions is about a 45-55 minutes drive from Budapest.
The grapes grown in this region are still raw-material for the Hungarian sparkling wines but the fresh white wines are remarkable also. Chardonnay, Olaszrizling and Zöld Veletelíni are dominating the vineyards, while the Rajnai rizling, Szürkebarát, Zenit, Rizlingszilváni, Pinot Blanc and Zalagyöngye make the palette more colourful. The grape varieties for red wine production take only an insignificant part of the vineyards. The red grape varieties present are the following: Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Kékfrankos, Portugieser (Kékoprtó), Merlot, Zweigelt and Pinot Noir.
Once you are in Etyek you can choose between several small wineries, each with its own charm and different activity options: one thing is for sure – they are all happy to offer their own wine and Palinka (Hungarian fruit brandy shots).
All of these wine estates are perfect for incentives, at Hernyák Vineyard you can learn about Palinka making as well, at Etyek Kúria guests can make their own wine blend and bottle them and take them home as a souvenir. The Haraszthy Wine Estate also has a pool to cool off on a hot sunny day.
Activities in Etyek
For those visiting Etyek, you might want to include a cooking class at Chef Parade’s farm in Etyek. Besides wines you can also visit Laci, the ham maker, or local cheese makers – everything is sustainable and delicious.
Etyek is not only about wine but the small town is the home of the Korda Film Studio, where many blockbuster movies have been produced in the past years. The Studio has open gates for visitors looking for fun and offers lots of different team-building activities around film production. Here guests can learn about special effects, and makeup tricks, and learn special moves from stuntmen. They can make their own short movie in the scenes of famous series and movies. It’s easy and fun to spend a whole day in Etyek.
Etyek Facts:
Distance from Budapest: only 40-50 min driving distance. Some of the vineyards are only accessible with minibusses (not coaches).
Capacities: There are several smaller private wineries and each with a capacity of 60-80 pax. Therefore, this is the group size we recommend. However, we can use multiple vineyard spaces in order to accommodate 200-250 pax at the same time in 3-4 wineries. The capacity of the Chef Parade Cooking Farm is maxed at 30-40 pax and is available during the warmer seasons only.
The activity capacity in the Korda Studio is absolutely flexible. All of our programmes are tailor-made so we can use these options from 50-60 pax to even a couple of hundred.
Functions:
This region with the Studio and the several vineyards is recommended for incentives, and not really suitable for meetings.
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