A wine district with a slightly slower pace of life near Hungary's southern borders and on the eastern side of the glorious Keszthely Hills. Zala wines were once just as important as the wines from the Kál Basin (Balaton Highlands) or Syrmia. It has a cool climate, so wines boast more acidity but also great aromatic richness. There are many small ambitious cellars and often small vineyards, but there is a beautifully structured, nuanced, varied and rich selection of wines. Many vineyards yield wines, generally Olaszrizling, that are somewhat Slovenian or south Burgenland in style.
GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION
The towns and villages belonging to the wine district are scattered around the area of the Zala Hills and the north-western slopes of the Keszthely Hills. It belongs administratively to Zala County. Its total area is 6,079 hectares. Around a third, 801 hectares, of the available area is currently under vine.
SOIL
Vines are most often grown on brown forest soils and loess loam soils.
Most of the area is located on gently sloping hills. The core of the hills is made up of the sandy-clay sediments of the former Pannon Lake, with a thin layer of Quaternary loess covering them.
CLIMATE
The climate is relatively temperate, with cooler temperatures than the Hungarian average. It has the country's highest amount of precipitation at 900 mm, for example, in the Mura subdistrict. (It is interesting, however, that the rain generally falls in concentrated spells, in downpours, so the number of sunshine hours is therefore no lower than other areas of Transdanubia at similar latitudes).
GRAPE VARIETIES AND TYPICAL WINE STYLES
It is clearly a white wine region. The most common grape variety in the Zala wine district is Olaszrizling. There are also significant amounts of Riesling (Rajnai Rizling), Müller-Thurgau (Rizlingszilváni in Hungarian), Zöldveltelini and Chardonnay in the region. One speciality is Pintes, a rather high-yielding, old Hungarian variety that was rediscovered here in Zala. Some producers also produce high-quality Traminer and Pinot Grigio. There are only 182 hectares of black grapes.
Until the last few years, very little of the region's wine was bottled. It boasts particularly good growing conditions, since the increasingly warm summers have not yet affected acidity as much as in other wine regions. The wines are generally elegant and quite lean, with good acidity and lively, rich aromatics, making them very approachable and drinkable. In all three districts, most wines are light-bodied, yet aromatic and well-structured, often with mineral notes and sometimes with a little residual sugar. They can also be laid down for a few years, especially those wines made from low-yielding vines. They benefit from ageing, with their elegant yet rich flavours best appreciated after about three or four years in bottle.