Balaton Wine Region

Although many people visit Lake Balaton mainly for summer holidays and the beaches, the area around the largest lake in Central Europe also offers plenty of active and gastronomical options. Whether it's a hike on the monadnock hills of the Balaton Uplands or exploring the six Balaton wine districts, you will find unique wines that dynamically convey the characteristics of the soil.

Olaszrizling is the most common variety in the wine region, beautifully reflecting the characteristics of the production area. Particularly elegant, fine-acid wines are made from the variety in the Balatonfüred–Csopak wine district, located on the northern shore of Lake Balaton, and can be considered the flagship wines of the region.

In the case of the Badacsony wine district, the water mass of Lake Balaton, the unique climate formed by the monadnock of the Balaton Uplands and the minerality of the basalt ensure the rich, full-bodied character of the wines. The wines here are full of life, are elegant and rounded; they can be both sweet on the palate and minerally salty or even bitter. In the history of wine culture in Badacsony, the Kéknyelű, an ancient Hungarian grape variety grown only in this district, has been widely acclaimed.

Due to the hot microclimate and wonderful landscape of the Balaton Uplands wine district, it’s a truly romantic destination. The wine district is located in the hilly northern shores of Lake Balaton, dotted with nature reserves and small villages. During long warm autumns and cooler evenings, the grapes mature into fuller wines.

The Balatonboglár wine district, located on the southern shore of Lake Balaton, boasts several attractions in addition to being one of the most popular holiday destinations. The wine region offers slender and light white wines as well as elegant reds, but an interesting point is that it also serves as an excellent production area for the varieties that are the raw materials for making champagne.

The Zala wine district extends from the western tip of Lake Balaton, absorbing Kis-Balaton. The beautiful, sloping landscape and the many floodplains along the river also favour the grapes, especially the more acidic, more characteristic white wines made here.

Heading on north from Lake Balaton, the truncated-shaped volcanic monadnock, home to the Nagy-Somló wine district, appears. This wine district is one of the smallest in the country, yet, in terms of its unique natural features and characteristic soil structure, it’s the most exciting wine region apart from Tokaj. Due to its distinct terroir character, Somló wine is always primarily ‘Somló’ and only then Olaszrizling or the most significant variety of the wine region, the Juhfark, also coined as the honeymoon wine.