17 October 2024 / Ádám Geri
Your estate centre in Rátka, housing a winery, ageing cellar, bistro and a sparkling wine bar has opened in 2024. What were the key considerations when designing the complex?
Andrea Sauska: The concept was clearly defined by the fact that our goals have changed. Our focus over the last 15 years has shifted almost entirely to dry wines and sparkling wines. We have practically outgrown the once very modern winery in the historic building of the Tokaj Civic Casino: for example, the storage of the sparkling base wines and still wines has become and impossible logistical task for our winemaker Gábor Rakaczki. This building on the top of Padi Hill, looking out towards infinity, is a precise reflection of the evolution of our journey and the development of our dreams. It's no coincidence that anyone who comes down into the barrel-vaulted space will not find traditional cellar romanticism, rather stainless steel tanks in a disciplined row, some terracotta eggs and wooden barrels. It's not hard to guess what we're thinking. Our family and Ybl Prize winner Péter Bordás, who designed the building, were in total agreement that the hill should accommodate the winery building as naturally as possible. We have not forgotten for a moment that Tokaj is Hungary's most important historic wine region, a region that Hungarians are passionate about, and a World Heritage Site. So our responsibility was significant in every respect, and we took this seriously. Peter Bordás' thoughts on the concept are proof of this: “There are landscapes, regions where the undulation and the pristine nature of the surface is axiomatic, it does not need to be explained. In these places, if there is human activity, it is humble. Such is the Tokaj landscape, where villages are hidden in the valleys, and man, in unity with the sun and the topography, subordinate to nature, draws the lines of the vineyards. Here, we can feel the undulating landscape move every now and then as the planet takes a breath.”
In addition to the exterior, let's talk about the interior. Can you give us some interesting data and parameters about the performance and capacity of the new building?
Péter Pohl: The winery has a fermentation capacity of 6,500 hectolitres. We have three main focuses in terms of storage. One is our reserve wine stock, which is essential for sparkling wine making and is stored completely separately from the fermenting wines. This has a capacity requirement of around 1,500 hectolitres. The other important storage and maturation area is the wooden barrels and ceramic containers section, where we have a total of 150 barrels in two separate rooms. Finally, the third is bottle storage, where we have a capacity of around 100,000 bottles. Of course, we have a much larger stock than this in Budafok. The visitor areas and the winery technology areas cover more than 5,000 square metres in total, and although they are well separated, the two functions have been forged into an integral whole. The wines are fermented and matured in concentric steel tanks and wooden barrels in the areas below the sparkling wine bar and bistro. We can accommodate 36 people in our sparkling wine bar and 42 in our restaurant, each with a terrace seating 70 people. Our tasting room seats 12, but because everything is about wine here, we're happy to serve you a glass anywhere in the building.
Has the building been equipped with cutting-edge technology that represents a novelty in winemaking in Hungary or even worldwide?
Péter Pohl: It is the concept itself that we consider outstanding. It would not have been easy to incorporate technology that was very specific to certain wines, as it was precisely diversity that needed to be accommodated. Flexibility was a key consideration. We have created a large processing area, so that the winery can be traversed along its entire length, and can thus easily accommodate the increased material flow. The biggest volume is in the sparkling wine production. Since we harvest by hand, the grapes are brought to the winery in crates, and everything is whole cluster pressed. That's actually the bottleneck, as most of the sparkling wine is made from Furmint, and obviously our Furmint grapes all ripen at the same time. We also make red wine, which has to be fermented on its skins, and Aszú, which has a really special production technology. The great thing about the building is that it works. It gives you everything you expect. Thermo-technically, it is important that the entire processing and fermentation area is underground. It can therefore be used all year round without heating or cooling. Everywhere else, we use heat pumps for cooling and heating. To complete the project, we are building a solar park in the immediate vicinity of the winery. Of course, the entire air conditioning and the operation of all machines can be adjusted using optimisation software. For example, you can automatically react to the temperature outside, or time the start of your machines according to the load on the power grid, thus saving energy and money.
Péter Pohl, Estate Manager / Photo: Sauska Winery
Is there a type or style of wine that the new winery has made possible?
Andrea Sauska: Our main traditional grape varieties are Furmint, Sárgamuskotály and Hárslevelű. In addition to these, we also have vineyards planted to international varieties Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Sauvignon Blanc. The latter are mainly the basis for our sparkling wines, but we also make other dry wines from them. We are convinced that the character of the wine region is so strong that it is not the use of the traditional grape varieties that makes a wine from here authentically Tokaji, but the terroir. Tokaj's DNA trumps everything, including recognised stars of the international wine world such as Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc. We want the world to feel it in our still and sparkling wines. Hence, we want to move consistently towards ever higher quality.
Andrea Sauska, Head of Marketing / Photo: Sauska Winery
What was the first feedback on the building? What do visitors and residents of the Tokaj wine region who see the "newcomer" every day say?
Andrea Sauska: We are delighted that the building has been received with overwhelming love. Of course we were nervous, but when we were nicknamed the "Tokaj UFO", we knew that the complex had "arrived". Photos and videos flooded social media, almost all of which were taken on a stretch of route 37. We are grateful that our visitors found our winery's selfie point so cool.
What the people who work in it say is at least as important. What is your initial experience, how is the winery functioning?
Péter Pohl: This was our third harvest here and it went off without any technical hitches. We were able to work in the cellar without any compromises, both from a technical and an architectural perspective.
What now? What has to be done in the new building, is there anything that is not yet finished?
Andrea Sauska: We are taking a breather for the time being: the next few years will be about introducing our winery as a tourist destination. From the very beginning, it was also important to us that Sauska Tokaj was bring something significantly new to the wine region, in terms of architecture, interior design and gastronomy. It is still our turn to show ourselves to the world. International competition is huge, with so many wonderful wineries, great wines and fabulous restaurants to choose from for those interested in this kind of tourism. In addition, we are working in difficult circumstances regarding additional services: transport between wineries in the wine region is unresolved, and there are still few cultural and sports programmes that are meaningful to foreigners. We know that we cannot succeed alone. Our mission is to "pull along" small businesses in the area. We are delighted to welcome, follow and recommend all quality innovations, because it's in our fundamental interest that visitors find their way here and stay as long as possible.
