Wine Country Day Trip to Villány (from Budapest)

Start your small-group tour with a pickup from your central Budapest hotel and board your comfortable minivan for your journey to Villány, Hungary’s southernmost wine region.

As you travel, hear how Hungarian wines have gained international plaudits but are still hard to come by elsewhere in the world. Hear, too, how Villány boasts a sub-Mediterranean climate that helps to produce its full-bodied red wines, and how the region centers on 11 winemaking villages best-known for reds made from cabernet franc grapes.

Drink in the vine-covered countryside, and then, through the morning and afternoon, stop at three traditional and modern country wineries to gain a balanced picture of the local wines.

Take a vineyard tour to see the grapes close up, and at each winery, sample between five and eight wines, including cabernet franc, cabernet sauvignon and portugieser reds, and whites such as olaszrizling and chardonnay. As you sip, swap tasting notes and get fascinating insights into each wine from your winemaker host.

Between wineries, check out some of Villány’s wine villages, including Villány itself, and see its rows of traditional whitewashed wine cellars, many of them still in use.

Around midway through your tour, head for a local restaurant to enjoy a generous 3-course lunch. Venues and menus change regularly, but lunch typically includes staples such as as hearty broths, stews and roasts followed by desserts such as strudel. After, visit the last winery and pair your tastings with some local cured meat and artisanal cheese to bring out the flavor of the wines you're sampling.

Then, rejoin your minivan and return to Budapest, where your tour concludes with a hotel drop-off.