A boraiból megéledett fõnix, avagy a Szekszárdi borvidék
The Phoenix Revived by Its Wines: The Szekszárd Wine Region

Summary/Abstract: The historic wine region of Szekszárd has cultivated and developed its viticultural and wine culture since Roman times, together with the customs, literary traditions, and artistic heritage associated with it. This legacy encompasses the early Christian sarcophagus, the wine-loving abbot of the chronicles, the drama of 1550, and the earliest surviving wedding song from 1580, no less than Garay János’s verbal coinage in his Szegszárdi bordal: bikavér. It was this wine that inspired Schubert’s Trout Quintet; it was drunk by Franz Liszt, Pope Pius IX, and by those who successfully sought protection against cholera. Over the course of centuries marked by struggle, it was thanks to its far-famed wine that Szekszárd became a county seat, and it was here, in 1856, that Hungary’s first wine-merchants’ joint-stock company was founded. At the end of the 19th century, the region was among the first to overcome the phylloxera crisis successfully, and later it also endured the hardships brought about by war and government policy. Today, the wine region, covering some 2,500 hectares, justly enjoys renown through its wines in international competitions, on export markets, and on the tables of Hungarian consumers. In all this, it faithfully reflects the fruitful relationship between landscape and human ingenuity that has been sustained here for millennia.

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