Zsolt Nagy (owner, winemaker): “It has been fifteen years since I have started to make wines in a relatively small vineyard close to Lake Balaton. In 2013, we decided to relocate our estate from Csopak  to Tokaj Region, which is my other favourite wine region. Since then we have been establishing this boutique winery together with my wife and Árpád Forming our "Préselő- team". We enjoy improving our winemaking experience through continuous learning and development.”

Gabriella Mészáros (owner, sommelier): “I was involved in and completed WSET and sommelier courses, and together with my husband, I also love wines as well as Tokaj wine region. It was a lot of work to establish both the winery and the guesthouse, but I feel now that we are already on the right track. I am responsible for arranging wine-tasting events and for organising satellite programs to local festivals and other events at our winery.”

Árpád Zöldi-Kovács (viticulturist, winemaker): “I manage all wine-growing and winemaking activities at the winery. I live in Erdőbénye, earlier I have been ane estate manager of another local winery for 10 years, and now I am responsible for the same tasks at Préselő Winery. I am in charge for the full range of viticultural works, I spend most of my days in the vineyards. In the cellar, I share the responsibility with Zsolt for the wines. It is a really inspiring role to take part in establishing a new winery!”

Foundation year: 2013
Area of owned vineyards: 4 hectares
Area of rented vineyards: 4 hectars
Vineyards: Rány, Palandor, Omlás, Messzelátó, Serédi, Szentvér
Annual Production: 10,000 bottles

We collected our growing area of 8 hectares in Tokaj wine region in 2013, the estate centre is located in Erdőbénye. When selecting possible plots, we deliberately searched for vineyards matching the most to our vision in terms of soil, exposure and condition of the vines as well. The assortment of our grape varieties are in line with the classic “Tokaj region blend”, namely our plantation consists of 60% Furmint, 15% Hárslevelű and 15% Sárga Muskotály varieties.

Our most beautiful vineyards belong to the best ones in the Tokaj region. We have 1 hectare in the Rány vineyard, which is a rhyolite-based plot with excellent endowments, where exclusively Furmint vines are cultivated. Another hectare in the Omlás vineyard serves a as home for our 70-year old Furmint and Hárslevelű vines. It is a pleasure for us to experiment in this vineyard, we make both single variety and cuvée wines as well here in order to find the best style and wine type, which reflects the most of this vineyard’s characteristics. We have got 1 hectare in the Palandor vineyard as well. Its super endowments and clay-rhyolite soil give excellent fruit for our elegant, French-style wines. Furmint and Hárslevelű wines show the complexity of Tokaj wine region through their exotic fragrance and rich aromas. Our plot in the Messzelátó vineyard, Erdőbénye, is one of the highest vineyards of the wine region in terms of altitude. Due to its southerly exposure, rich, rhyolite-based soil, and excellent climate conditions, outstanding Furmint wines can be produced from here.

Barrels of 2 and 4 hectolitres are used in our winery, most of them are made by competent local coopers using Hungarian oak from the mountains of Zemplén Hills nearby. Our barrels, providing the ageing capacity to our dry and aszú wines, are kept in 150-year old cellar branches lying just under our house. It makes us very proud that our cellar is basically a branch of the beautiful cellar system in Erdőbénye. Besides keeping the generic character of the variety, our goal is to reflect the special terroir in our wines, therefore, we combine the fermentation in stainless steel with ageing in used barrels for 3-4 months. In this way, thanks to the stainless steel fermentation, our singly variety and cuvée wines can preserve their fruity and fresh characters, flower-like fragrance and taste, while the barrel ageing later on can highlight these aromas and makes these notes, and consequently the wine, even more charming, but not ruining them at all. This is the way, how we think the modern dry Tokaji wine should look like.

Our cellar assortment has got aerated, sparkling, single variety, cuvée, late harvest and aszú wines as well, indeed, even a rosé wine, which is unique in this wine region.

It is the third year now since we have launched our own sparkling wine from the winery. The small amount of residual sugar completes the fresh, fruity and flower-like aromas of the base cuvée wine, making this dynamic wine with vivid acids a very charming one. The novelty of the next year is going to be the appearance of the Hárslevelű-Furmint Brut method traditionelle sparkling wine from 2014 on the market. It was made by traditional method, and most of it is still under ageing process in the cellar.

Rosé wine is a unique one in Tokaj wine region, since red grape is not common here. Accordingly, we wanted to make an elegant, “evening rosé” with rich content., It matches also excellently with serious meals due to its salty minerality reflecting the terroir beyond its fruitiness. In this cuvée wine, Merlot gives fruitiness, Kékfrankos provides vivid acids, and Cabernet Sauvignon adds fiery character to this cuvée.

We picked the grape of our Late-harvest Furmintwine of 2013 end of October - early November, with  high sugar content. Due to its concentrated content and rich aromas, it is a perfect choice with desserts or even with Asian meals.

Aszú is the most famous and well-known wine type of Tokaj wine region. Geographical coincidence of the following factors here such as a unique terroir and microclimate, as well as the presence of the Botrytis cinerea, enables us to make one of the best sweet wines of the world. In accordance with the strict quality regulations, we release 2013 vintage to the market in this year, but we still have a couple of barrels of aszú wines of 2015 and 2016 in our cellar, as well.   

In the vineyards of Chona’s Marani, the vintage begins at the end of September. Before the start of the vintage the level of the grape maturity is checked to selecte optimum period to pick up the grape. Picked grapes is transported from the vineyard to the cellar so as to ensure maximum integrity of the bunches. After that, the grape is pressed using special machine into Qvevri.

After the pressing the grape into Qvevri, begins the period of fermentation when the sugar is converted into alcohol. This process is carried out entirely by organic, wild yeast covering grape skin. In the process of fermentation, chacha is intensivly mixed with juice in qvevri, which helps in the disintegration of sugar and diffuses the phenolic compounds - useful tannins in wine. After primary and secondary fermentation, the wine is checked in laboratory to determine its parameters. After the end of the fermentation process, Qvevri is locked and covered with the ground or river sand till the spring. 

In the first decade of April, we open the Qvevri, taste wine and make the secondary lab analysis. At that time we separate chacha (grape skin and stem) from wine and remove wine into the clean new Qvevri where the wine is naturally filtered before bottling.

Wine making is traditionally accompanied by Georgian polyphonic songs, which is an integral part of the family and is accompanied by wine tasting.