But trying to convince wine buyers abroad to choose Hungarian wine is a more difficult task. Especially when they have access to better-known French, Italian, Australian, or American varieties.

“Is there such a thing as Hungarian wine?” clients sometimes ask Monika Elling, chief marketing officer at Monarchia Matt International (MMI), when she pulls out her portfolio of high-end, limited-production Hungarian wines.

“A lot of people in America have never heard of it, and don’t think of Hungary as a wine producer. In fact, they don’t think much about Hungary at all,” she said. “So, the country has an image issue to overcome.” MMI, a Hungarian-American firm which makes and distributes high-end, artisan-style wine, is leading the way in educating and re-introducing the world to fine Hungarian wines. They have earned a reputation for being the ambassadors of Hungarian wine to America.

Hungary’s image problem

Not only does Hungary have an image problem to overcome, but it lags far behind its international competitors in marketing its wine and image as a wine making country. The problem in the Hungarian wine industry is no longer with the product, as it was during the Communist-era of mass-producing wine factories. Hungarian wines are being increasingly praised internationally. In the past two years, for example, they have won top prizes in competitions in Japan, Canada, Germany, France, Belgium, England, Argentina, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Brazil, The United States, Slovenia, and Slovakia. Still, the average consumer abroad knows little about Hungarian wine.

“We have 2,000 years of wine making history, and we just had a few bad decades,” said Attila Sándor, a wine educator and wine tour-guide based in Budapest.

“The problem is that the generation that is now our potential clientele grew up during those decades when Hungary wasn’t mentioned over the dinner table as a wine making country.”

Clearly, Hungary needs to develop a strategy for promoting its wines and establishing an international image as a quality wine producer. Where’s the Government?

“I always felt that Hungary needed a flagship image that it could offer the world, and in my mind, the sexiest thing that Hungary could offer was great wine,” said Elling, who has been pushing this idea to the government since the early 1990’s.

“It has all of the things you need — great territory, a terrific history, great personalities. It has the potential for great wines, and frankly you don’t need to speak Hungarian to drink a bottle of Hungarian wine.”

Wine never did become Hungary’s flagship image, and unlike most other successful wine producing countries, Hungary doesn’t have a dedicated wine marketing organization to push its cause. Katalin Bencze, the project manager responsible for wine marketing at the Hungarian Agricultural Marketing Center (AMC), blames it on a lack of money. The AMC cannot move forward with a more aggressive marketing campaign because, “we have a very limited budget. With such little money, we can do few things.”

Winemakers are disappointed with what they say is a lack of support from the government, and according to Elling it’s more difficult for winemakers to get financial support like bank loans. Hungarian winemakers also aren’t able to contribute financially to marketing campaigns, like MMI’s wineries from other countries do.

Tax system volatility

“It’s surprising I’m still alive,” said Szekszárd wine producer Ferenc Takler, about his winery. According to him, the government changes the tax system too often.“ In spite of the government’s effort, Hungarian wine has an improving image,” said Takler, who is last year’s Hungarian Winemaker of the Year (a prize awarded by the Hungarian Wine Academy). Takler has also become one of MMI’s star winemakers.

“He has developed a following in America,” said Elling. “And there are people who look for the next Takler wine.”

Steps are being taken by the government, said Bencze, in the creation of a new Hungarian national wine marketing board being planned for later this year. Currently the AMC, which falls under the banner of the Ministry of Agriculture and Regional Development, is responsible for marketing wine, as well as Hungary’s other agricultural products.

The new board would take over the marketing responsibilities from the AMC, and would be financed partially by the government, with contributions from the wine producers, she explained. It is being formed with the cooperation of four Hungarian wine groups (the Hungarian Wine Academy, the Guild of Pannonian Vintners, the National Council of Wine Communities and the Hungarian Wine Association).

According to Sándor, the creation of the new organization is also a result of the pressure which these groups have been putting on the government.

A joint effort

“At first much of the money would have to come from the bigger producers, rather than the small family companies,” said Bencze. “But we would like it to operate like the German Wine Institute or the French Sopexa, which also get money from the wine producers.” Currently, the AMC’s main means of support for winemakers is funding their participation in four annual international wine festivals.

Hungary produces four million hectoliters of wine a year (less than Chile and Australia, but more than Austria and New Zealand) and in 2003, it exported about twenty percent of that, according to the National Council of Wine Communities. According to the organization, Hungary exported USD 76.2 million worth of wine in that year.

MMI, however, is banking on the idea the American market will become the most important. According to the National Council of Wine Communities, Hungary exports ? HUF of wine every year. Although sales within Hungary account for most of the wine sales, “the foreign market is of utmost importance. We’re not only speaking about selling wine, but what we sell abroad should also generate wine tourism to sustain the wine regions,” said Sándor, who has been in the tourism business for more than 20 years. “What Hungary needs to do is to represent itself with top quality wines to the best restaurants and wine shops in the world, to raise eyebrows, and to generate the interest of connoisseurs, which will make them want to visit the country,” he said. “We can’t feed the world with wines, but we can attract them with wine. We can educate the world about our wines, and they will learn about our culture. Hungary is an old world wine producer with both old and new world style.”

The Bikavér Problem

One of Hungary’s biggest obstacles, say observers, is overcoming past marketing mistakes that have sullied its reputation. Egri Bikavér made its name abroad in the 1970’s when it was mass produced and exported, usually ending up on the bottom shelf of American and British supermarkets. Besides a few bottles of pricey Tokaj, these sub-par Bikavérs (made from grapes that didn’t make the cut for superior wines) were the only Hungarian wine available in the United States until recently (Egervin Bikavér is still sold in the US for USD 3.99-6.99 a bottle).

The problem was that the name Bikavér became associated with cheap, acidic wine. But Bikavér—a cuvee of three or more grape varieties, made in both Eger and Szekszárd—can be a great wine, and many of today’s Bikavérs are exceptionally different than those of the past. Some of Hungary’s best winemakers—Tibor Gál, Ferenc Takler, Vilmos Thummerer, and Ferenc Vesztergombi, are successfully producing quality Bikavérs.

“There’s so much turmoil on the Hungarian market about this one issue, about what Bikavér means,” said Elling. “Is it from Eger or Szekszárd, its concept, its marketability outside of Hungary. My point is that there’s no point to this discussion because its fate has essentially been sealed by the fact that there’s only one type of Bikavér that’s commercially viable on export markets across the world, and that’s essentially called Egri Bikavér, and it’s inexpensive. The problem is that if you’re trying to sell with the same name another product that’s five times the price, without some serious marketing, then it’s impossible.”

MMI recently gambled on adding Takler’s Szekszárdi Bikavér Reserve 2002 to its portfolio. “We have been able to achieve something that Hungary as a country has yet to accomplish, and that is to put out a high end Bikavér in America at the USD 22 price point, which is USD 60-75 in restaurants. We’re not going to flood the market with Bikavérs, but we definitely made a breakthrough and we feel very comfortable that our wines regardless of what they are called are known for the quality that they deliver.”

MMI also sells Takler’s Cabernet Franc 2003 for USD 90, which is a price almost unheard of for a non-Tokaj Hungarian wine. Another Bikavér, Tibor Gál’s Egri Bikavér is also sold in the US through Kobrand, a New York-based wine importer which also co-owns Gál’s winery.

Elling compares the Bikavér problem to what Tuscany went through with Chianti, which used to be sold in ubiquitously cheap, straw-covered bottles. In the 1970s Tuscan winemakers began re-inventing their wines, creating pricey Super Tuscans, which brought prestige back to the region.

“All of a sudden the region and wine’s whole image has been restored, but it cost Italy an arm and a leg to do so,” said Elling.

“The question is: is Hungary prepared to do that? There needs to be a plan, and Hungary doesn’t have a plan.”

Starting from the beginning

Marketing Hungarian wine requires more patience than marketing the wines of countries like Italy, Spain, and France, which have already firmly established reputations and images for themselves, and it can’t be assumed that people know anything about Hungarian wine.

“We see ourselves to a great extent as educators too,” said Elling. “And its actually exciting for me to be able to tell them a new story, a story that they will believe, and a story that they will fall in love with.”

MMI, which is run by Nimrod Kovacs (former head of UPC Hungary), has brought Hungarian wines to the wine lists of a few of New York’s finest restaurants, like Café des Artistes (owned by Gundel’s George Lang), Chanterelle (winner of multiple James Beard awards) and Danube (run by award-winning chef David Bouley), and to wine retail stores along the east coast, with plans of continuing to spread further.

MMI places a high importance on providing a good price-value ratio, since inappropriate pricing is a problem among Hungarian winemakers, noted Elling.

“In order to communicate wine abroad you have to be familiar with a nation’s wine taste,” said Sandor. Most tourists who take Sandor’s wine tours have just superficial knowledge about Hungarian wine. “They know just about as much as Tokaj as they do about Cuban cigars,” he added. When meeting foreign clients, he emphasizes careful attention must be paid to different cultural preferences and attitudes.

Germans, for example, are especially interested in those types of Hungarian wines made by winemakers who have German roots. According to Sandor, Tokaj is a misconception that needs to be corrected. “Only five percent of wine from Tokaj is sweet, and from that only one percent is essencia,” he said. “It’s a pity for us and for them that they only see that one percent.”

There has been rising demand recently in the US and the UK for artisan style products — high quality, hand crafted, limited products by small producers. This is exactly what Hungarians say their “new generation” of winemakers create, and it could potentially bring large success abroad.

“It’s hard to enter any new market, but Hungarian wine earned a good reputation in whichever markets that it entered,” said Takler. “The reputation is continually improving with the quality of winemaking in Hungary, especially considering that we had to start from zero. Outside of Hungary it’s not the connections that count, but the quality of the wine.”