Dr. Pühra Bea is the head winemaker of the Nyakas Winery in the Etyek-Buda wine district. Producing mainly fruit driven styled white wines yet there is more to discover behind the winery doors. Her bubbly, friendly personality will capture you instantly…
Find below the English excerpt of the Kielmayer Kris KörKép Podcast which is available on Spotify, Google Podcast, Anchor and other platforms.
Content:
- The Wines of the Winery – Pleasant surprise & more
- Secret to happiness
- Constant learning
- Where and what would you be…
The Wines of the Winery – Pleasant surprise & more
The Menádok Wine Family is considered as the premium line-up of the Nyakas Winery (not available in the supermarkets) and when people taste these wines they´re quite surprised that a winery so well-known for fruity and protective winemaking can do such thing. As Bea was explaining that moment when people close their eyes and feel this amazement through the wines is simply priceless. They´re also often surprised when it turns out that the head winemaker is a woman. Bea reckons perhaps due to the physical part of winemaking is more often associated with the men. Some even reckon there is a distinct female (and male) touch when it comes to winemaking. Perhaps more refined? Who knows, but Bea pointed out the example when it comes to cooking men are likely to use seasoning more openly compared to women. Regarding the wine she gave an interesting example that back when Ernö Malya was the winemaker they rather did an acidity reduction through cold stabilization while now she aims for a bit of residual sugar to counter balance the high acidity.
In good company at Krakow Wine Exhibition, photo credit: Attila Somogyi
She remembers the first meeting with Ernö Malya who some even call strict, stringent but he was rather someone how appreciated the order. He never really praised Bea back as a winemaker, she once asked; “are you satisfied with me?”. “If we´re not you would not be here anymore” was his reply.
Currently the Nyakas Winery has 177 hectare and while some varieties are regarded as a love child like the 2 hectare Riesling yet the best selling variety are still the highly aromatic Irsai Olivér. Considering the fact that back in 2004 they wanted to get rid of it and now they could sell any number of this variety if they wanted to, strange times.
There is room for innovation -such as the Menádok wine family which started with 12 hl only- renewal is important, 43 ha are Chardonnay and for instance with the 2017 vintage it stopped with 10+ g/l residual sugar it was received throughout the wine community as a really good wine…
The Nyakas estate is also on the path of being organic. The attention to the environment becomes more important year by year.
Secret to happiness
To give the short answer, Bea recalls there is no secret to her happiness. One should also ask her family as well and laughs. She points out meditation, sport and a harmony with her family amongst the key points.
After she gave birth she went always fairly quickly back to work. And her colleagues helped her all the way; it’s not about sacrifice but balancing life and work. Bea also confirms if you smile people will smile back. It´s in her nature – and she laughs (once again) 🙂
Constant learning
Bea graduated as Pálinka Master as well and also completed the WSET Level 3 course. She points out that she has not yet made her very own pálinka but participates at the competitions and trainings regulary. The basics of a good pálinka is the fermentation. Regarding the WSET she highlights that it was very useful as she could fit wines into certain categories, styles to see where the rest of the competition plays. The tasting of wine styles were really useful.
Aromatic varieties are increasingly important
Where and what would you be…
Bea´s roots go the Bácska region (today: South Hungary and part of Serbia) and having Croatian ancestors; to the question to pick (another) favoured wine district she mentioned Villány but even Germany along the Rhine could be a place where she would have found easily a second “home”.
What kind of grape variety would you be? Sauvignon blanc – Bea replied due to the personality of the grape variety. Perhaps best described as “shrew” but very much loveable, Sauvignon blanc may the lion zodiac sign under the grape varieties.
