Expat Choice | Juliet Victor Hungarian Wines now available on e-commerce platform in Singapore

Juliet Victor Hungarian Wines now available on e-commerce platform in Singapore

Published - 13 April 2022, Wednesday

Juliet Victor Winery is located in the village of Mád at the heart of Tokaj region, a region in Hungary celebrated for its history of exquisite wine production that spans across five centuries. Surrounding the village of Mád – the first place in the world to register and document individual vineyards – the Juliet Victor vineyard portfolio is made up of over 30 ha of the highest quality and historically significant areas that allow it to produce outstanding and varied vintages.

Juliet Victor was founded in 2016 by renowned airline executive Mr. József Váradi (CEO of Wizz Air) as a result of a decade-long search for a wine regions with the most outstanding potential for vintages. For these attributes Mád and its historic vineyards were selected as the home of Juliet Victor for its significant potential. The name of the winery reflects the founder’s initials as a subtle moniker – the corresponding letters in the phonetic alphabet give its name for ‘J’ and ‘V’.

Juliet Victor Winery's mission is to create the world’s finest Tokaj wines and to redefine the perception of Hungarian wine across the world. Mád and its historic vineyards provide the perfect mixture of minerality and complexity required for dry white wines as well as the conditions for botrytized grapes from which the world-renowned Tokaj flavor is extracted from.

Juliet Victor specializes in dry single-vineyard furmint wines and naturally-sweet vintages including Tokaj’s historic specialities such as Szamorodni and Aszú. The main grape varieties are furmint, sárgamuskotály (muscat blanc) and hárslevelű. The vines are on average 45-50 years old, but the Bomboly vineyard includes some vines that are over 100 years old.

Juliet Victor produces linear, mineral-driven wines which emphasise the volcanic terroir and express the individual qualities of each of the vineyards (Betsek, Király, Szent Tamás, Úrágya, Bomboly, Holdvölgy and Veres). Unique terroir qualities are fully capitalized on in state-of-the-art facilities that are complemented by ageing in large Hungarian oak casks. These casks are only lightly toasted, the intention is to enhance rather than mask the fruit. The wines are carefully crafted by winemaker Zsolt Vincze, son-in-law of Hungary's most influential winemaking figure, István Szepsy.

Juliet Victor Asia Pte. Ltd., a wine distribution company in Singapore was established by Márk Váradi who is also one of the co-owners of the Juliet Victor Winery. Juliet Victor is expanding its distribution into Asia, starting with Singapore. Wines are available to purchase in Singapore through Juliet Victor’s Singapore e-commerce platform at julietvictor.com.sg

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Rebecca

14 Apr 2022 , Thu

160 comments

CONTRIBUTOR

RATED 7.5 / 8

These stunning, award-winning Hungarian wines will be sure to tantalise your tastebuds

Coming from New Zealand and spending most of my adult life in Sydney and now Singapore, I am a huge wine lover but also the first to admit my knowledge is firmly ensconced in new world antipodean wines. Having married a Frenchmen my palate has certainly been extended over many visits to Europe and it was on one such visit to Croatia that I first tried Eastern European wine. We were both totally blown away by the impressive flavours, balance and quality of their white wines and our only disappointment is that we could not find these hidden gems here in Singapore (or really anywhere else for that matter).

It was therefore my great pleasure to be invited to try a range of Juliet Victor wines from Hungary, a close border neighbour with Croatia – and we had high hopes that these would deliver a similarly spectacular sip.

Juliet Victor’s vineyards are located in the heart of the Tokaj region in a village called Mád, north-east of Budapest. It is a long celebrated wine region, with a history of wine production spanning five centuries and was in fact the first place in the world to register and document individual vineyards. So indeed there is some serious wine pedigree here. Juliet Victor has over 30 hectares of the highest quality vineyards, some with vines up to 100 years old and its mission is create the world’s finest Tokaj wines thereby redefining the perception of Hungarian wine on the world stage. I was particularly impressed to learn that the vineyards unique volcanic terroir is emphasised during production reminding me of the outstanding Mt Etna wines we enjoyed in Sicily (and continue to seek to this day).

Despite only being founded in 2016, the stellar team at Juliet Victor are certainly well on their way to achieving their goals - they became the first ever Hungarian wine to be awarded Best in Show in the history of the Decanter World Wine Awards (for their Szamorodni vintage). Added to this they hold a slew of platinum, gold and 95+ ratings from the DWWA which sees over 18,000 wine entries every year.

Impressed by the pedigree and accolades afforded onto these wines, we decided to wait for a special occasion to truly savour them. A beautiful seafood birthday dinner by the sea at Sentosa Cove seemed like the perfect occasion.

Our first drop was the Juliet Victor Furmint Bomboly 2018 (DWWA Awards 2021 Gold 95 points) – a dry single vineyard style served in a uniquely shaped long-necked bottle. Now I am very particular about my white wines and am a classic Chardonnay drinker who also enjoys the odd Riesling and Pinot Gris depending on the occasion and cuisine. Upon researching the grape, I discovered Furmint (Hungary’s flagship white wine) is in fact considered a half-sibling to both Chardonnay and Riesling. This was EXACTLY my style of wine – perfection in a glass! With crisp minerality, notes of yellow apple, creamy quince and spices and an eternal finish it was an absolutely stunning match for our seafood spread. While it spends 8 months in Hungarian Oak barrels, the subtle oak enhances rather than masks the fruit – pairing the wine equally well with our delicate clams as it did with the bold flavours of our Szechuan prawns.

Moving onto the sweeter Juliet Victor Szamorodni 2017 (DWWA Awards 2020 Best in Show 97 points) we were truly indulged by this botrytized dessert style wine – a bright gold Tokaji with a fresh alluring fragrance, a complex stone fruit mouth feeling, muscat tones, minerality and oak blend together to create what could equally be described as liquid gold in a glass. If I had to choose between a dessert or this wine, it would be the Szamorodni every time.

With wines as high quality and unique as these, it is well worth trying something new and sampling the wares that Juliet Victor has to offer – with the range on offer in Singapore including three sweeter style Tokaji blends and four distinctive single vineyard Furmint vintages.