ÉG ÉS FÖLD KÖZÖTT / BETWEEN HEAVEN AND EARTH 2022

Cabernet Franc in Villány achieves outstanding quality and is the key to its future!
“CABERNET FRANC HAS FOUND ITS NATURAL HOME IN VILLÁNY” as Michael Broadbent described in English Decanter magazine in 2000.

On the estate you can feel like you’re between heaven and earth. The European honey buzzard (or pern), which can be found on the labels, lives near the cellar. The pern soars high but feeds on the ground. It circles high up in the sky but has to return again and again to scrape food out of the ground. This symbolism has been imprinted in me ever since: an unending cycle between heaven and earth. Like a winemaker who lives from the earth, works with the earth, and makes wine from the grapes, which uplifts our souls and spirits.
The symbolism of ‘Between Heaven and Earth’ is not only the philosophy of the estate, but also the name of a long envisioned wine, a super premium Villányi Franc. A wine that reaches for the sky, and gives back the “maximum” that has confronted me in the cycle of nature.

Tasting note:
The wine’s rich layers beautifully unfold with every sip. Its dark berry fruit profile blends seamlessly with the ‘must-have’ elegant spices of barrel aging—cocoa and dark chocolate. As the long, lingering finish develops, new dimensions emerge, like sweet paprika, delicate minerality, and graphite notes.
Grand wine, offers plenty of everything, yet remains effortlessly balanced— powerful, harmonious structure, and full of life. An exceptional red wine experience that showcases the delightful sense of a super-premium Villányi Franc.

Winemaking, ageing:
I have selected the grapes from the smallest clustered, most productive and most fertile parts of the vineyard. The top third of the rows were individually picked and fermented.
Hand harvested on 22 September 2022. It was sorted berry by berry on a sorting table, whole berry without crushing, and then fermentation started after a few days of cold maceration. Towards the middle of the fermentation, it received a safety yeast with a 23 day maceration. After malolactic fermentation in tank, barrel ageing for 20 months, in Hungarian and French, new and 1 year old barrels.Bottled in December 2024, without de-stemming, bottled gently, without pumping. This is a true gravity winery , the whole process was completely pump-free.

• Villányi Franc
• Superpremium wine, Villány DHC (Districtus Hungaricus Controllatus Villány)
• Vintage: 2022
• Alcohol: 14,5 %, Residual sugar: 1,2 g/l, Total acidity: 5,6 g/l