All my friends will tell you that I’m obsessed with Budapest, and they are right! It’s my favourite city in the world! Nearly every time I meet someone new somehow, I get on to the topic of Budapest, asking them if they have been, what they thought or instructing them to go ASAP.
There is so much to see and do. I’m up to 6 visits and counting to this tremendous city. Its fantastic in winter with the Christmas markets. I love walking amongst all the little stalls trying the Chimney Cake (kürtőskalács), Goulash soup in a bread bowl (gulyásleves) and of course the Mulled wine (forralt bor). In the summer it has fantastic weather for visiting Margaret Island (Margitsziget), Buda Castle and Szechenyi Baths. Whether it’s hot or cold, sunny or snowing the ruin bars are brilliant. Szimpla Kert is the original and a must visit if you’re going to Budapest.
Any way that’s enough of that lets talk about the wine.
There is plenty of wine available in Budapest. All the bars and restaurants serve it as you would expect. The bars/pubs mainly have Hungarian wine as do the restaurants but sometimes they have a separate list for foreign wine. I would stick to Hungarian, try the local stuff. You won’t be disappointed and its seems difficult to get hold of it in the UK, so try it while you can. The most common wines I have seen seems to be Kékfrankos (red) and white dessert wine called Tokaji. The Kékfrankos was blended with other grapes on occasions and is called Blaufränkisch in German. It seems quite dark and fruity to me. The Tokaji is a region and its pretty famous for sweet wine. Give it a go I think you will either love it or hate it, seems to be the way with sweet wines.
I think i’ll create another post specifically around Hungarian wine. I’ll stick to Budapest here.
So, I mentioned bars in Budapest. Here are some good wine ones I managed to find.
DiVino
Budapest has two DiVino bars, DiVino Gozsdu and DiVino Basilica. I’ve managed to visit and enjoy them both. They are modern and have a very large variety of wine. The prices were fair, and they are both in brilliant locations to have a few glasses and socialize. They can get busy later on especially Gozsdu.
Doblo Wine Bar
Another great wine bar this time in the 7th District of Budapest. Again, an extensive list of Hungarian wine to choose from. They also have many different tasting options to choose from, Cabernet Franc to Tokaji and even macaron and wine tasting. Well worth a visit.
Prosit Bistro & Bar
Just in Erzsébet Square this is a little Bistro which as a good selection of local wines. Not really a specific wine bar, however still pretty good. We had some food, some Kékfrankos and listened to a guitarist and singer who was playing. Great stuff.
Wine-Bar Andante
Located on the side Buda side of the Danube with great views of the chain bridge and the parliament building. I stumbled across this with friends while walking to Margaret Island. It has an extensive list of wines especially Hungarian. The prices seemed ok and they had a few different wine tasting options you could choose from.
There are plenty of other bars in the city. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to try them all (not yet anyway!) If you can suggest any others, then get in touch.
Wine Tasting- Faust Wine Cellar
Having been to Budapest 5 times and not done any wine tasting last August we decided we would give it a go. After looking online and the options and looking at trip advisor we decided on a tasting at Faust Wine Cellar. Its located on the Buda side of the city in the Buda Castle District. Its based in a cellar/cave beneath the Hilton hotel. It took us a little time to find but it was worth it in the end. Quite a surreal place to do a tasting. It all added to the experience.
We were a group of 6 and we decided to go for the “Curiosities of Hungary” tasting.
The tasting cost us around £35 and we got to try 8 different wines then choose our favorite which we got a full glass.
The experience was fantastic we tried a selection of fizz, whites, reds and dessert wines. The sommelier was extremely knowledgeable providing plenty of information around the grapes, locations styles etc and answering our questions.
The tasting lasted around two hours. I think it was fantastic value for money and I would highly recommend it to any wine lover taking a trip to Budapest. I think I will go again but this time try one of the other tastings which are available. One piece of advice I would give is have something to eat before you go….. some of our group hadn’t and let’s just say they were tipsy when we left…
If you’ve been, then let me know your thoughts!
About the Grape 