Wineries and spirit destilleries

• Pannonhalma Winery

  Illés Tamás & Liptai Zsolt

  

  

  

  The Benedictine monks, having settled on the Sacred Hill of Pannonia in 996, have always been closely associated with viticulture and wine making introduced by the Romans. At the beginning of the 1900's, the Archabbey had about 100 hectares of vineyards in the direct vicinity of Pannonhalma and it also had plantations on the Somló Hill and in Tokaj-Hegyalja.

  

  The political and social upheaval that followed World War II put an end to the centuries-old tradition when the single-party state confiscated the Abbey's vineyard holdings and winery. During the decades that followed, the monks never gave up hopes of reviving the legacy of excellence one day. Finally, it was 10 years after the Communist rule failed that the plans for rebirth took shape, according to that the Abbey Winery Pannonhalma on a floor space of 2000 m² and with a storage capacity of 3000 hectolitres was established in 2003.

  

  We introduced a special wine producing process that perfectly preserves the high quality potential of our grape varieties. Its basis is the four-storied building with each floor devoted to a different stage of processing where we can apply gravitational material movement. The juice of the white grapes goes into temperated stainless steel fermentation tank, while the fermentation of the red grapes is served by wooden vats and temperated metal tanks. The maturation of the red wines and some of the white ones is carried out in the cellar branches full of wooden barrels reaching deep into the hill.

  The building complex matching to the environment and utilizing the configurations of the terrain ,makes it possible for the Guests to have full insight into the technological process of wine making and its results.