📍 Kunság

Kunság is Hungary's largest wine area, on the Great Hungarian Plain (Alföld), between the Danube and the Tisza, around the city of Kecskemét. It is part of the Danube (Alföld) region. The plain is flat, the climate continental, with hot summers, cold winters and many sunny days.

Soils are mostly sandy. Sand suits the vine: phylloxera could not live in it, so many vineyards grew without grafting. Wines from sandy soils are light, aromatic and not very acidic.

The main grapes are white: Izsáki Sárfehér, Cserszegi Fűszeres (an aromatic grape bred in Hungary) and Irsai Olivér. Among reds grow Kékfrankos (Blaufränkisch) and others. Wines are simple, fresh and meant for everyday drinking.

Kunság is less known abroad than Tokaj, but it supplies a large share of Hungarian wine. To the north lies Mátra and to the south Hajós-Baja. Kunság whites go well with fish soup, Danube and Tisza carp and light appetisers. The centre of the area, Kecskemét, is known for apricot pálinka and early-20th-century art-nouveau architecture. Wine here is part of everyday country life, and many farms sell it straight from the cellar.