Bussay Csókaszőlő 2022

The Land

Hungarian wine gets reduced to Tokaj's sweet whites and Villány's heavy reds, and Zala is neither. It sits in the far southwestern corner of the country, straddling the Mura river at the triple border with Slovenia and Croatia, and it is both the third smallest Hungarian wine region and the wettest. That matters. Rain, a cool continental climate moderated by the Mura's floodplain and the nearby Alps, and green hills covered in forest add up to wines with real acidity and moderate alcohol, which is not what most people expect out of Central Europe. Bussay farms Kövecs Hill near the village of Csörnyeföld, on rich black forest soil mixed with clay and loess, remnants of the ancient Pannonian Sea that once covered all of this.

The Wine

Csókaszőlő is one of Hungary's genuinely old native reds. The name comes from csóka, the jackdaw, and szőlő, grape, for berries so dark they read as black. It appears in written records in the 16th century as vadszőlő, wild grape, and was Hungary's principal red until Kadarka arrived with refugees from the Ottoman advance, after which it became a blending partner in Budai Vörös, the red of Buda. Then it nearly vanished. József Szentesi planted 300 vines in 2003 and made the first Csókaszőlő wine in more than 130 years in 2004. Bussay is now the variety's most committed grower, with 0.7 hectares that yield a single barrel a year. Spontaneous fermentation in open tank, then roughly two-thirds spends ten months in a used 1,000-liter oak cask and the rest stays in stainless. Violet, sour cherry and blood orange, crisp and juicy through the middle, with real spice on the finish. The 2022 summer was hot and dry across Central Europe, and Zala's rainfall and cool nights are why this still tastes sharp rather than baked.

The People

Dr. László Bussay founded the estate in 1989 and restarted serious winemaking in Zala County, a region written off after phylloxera pushed it toward bulk whites. He planted on the hill above Csörnyeföld and worked at a scale most people would call uneconomic, roughly one bottle per vine. He died in 2014, and his daughters Dóri and Bianka took over. Dorottya Bussay runs it today across about 5.5 hectares, farmed organically, producing near 15,000 bottles a year across a range that includes Olaszrizling, Rajnai Rizling, Pinot Noir and the Bordeaux reds. The Csókaszőlő is the least commercial thing they make and the one that justifies the rest.

Food Pairing

High acid, light tannin, a sour-cherry core: this is a food wine first. Duck leg braised with sour cherries is almost too obvious and completely correct. Paprikás csirke, chicken stewed in sweet paprika and sour cream, served over nokedli, gets cut clean by the acidity where a bigger red would smother it. Grilled lamb chops with garlic and black pepper meet the spice on the finish. Or a board of Mangalica salami and aged sheep cheese, where the wine's blood-orange edge does the work. Pour it slightly chilled for someone who thinks they have tasted everything.