Upper-Pannon jewelry box
The vineyards of Hilltop are located in the wonderful Upper-Pannon wine region. Yes, it's full of wonders, as its cultural diversity of the settlements and the variety of the landscape make this region like a genuine jewellery box.
This wine region, extending on the ranges, hillsides and hills of the Vértes, Buda, Gerecse, Kőszeg, Sopron Hills, furthermore around the Velence and Pannonhalma Hills, has been united by the cooler feature of the climate and the assortment of zestful wines rich in acids. Its climate has been affected by cooler and damper ocean air currents coming from north along with southern Mediterranean weatherings, so based on these weather conditions you can find more white grapes than red ones around here. While the extent of the wine region is relatively big (it's expanding from Budapest to the western border), the vine varieties are quite diverse from Blue Frankish, to Ezerjó and Chardonnay.
Learn Neszmély!*
The Neszmély wine region possesses a long-established wine history of more than two thousand years: from the legions of Emperor Probus to the monks of the Pannonhalma Abbey, a lot of people have been planting the local traditions. The good repute of the region's wines was deepened by domanial wines since the 18th century, and in the second half of the 19th century the imperial sampling vineyard and winery of the Eszterházy Csákvár Mansion in Ászár was built, which also provided the basis of the Neszmély wine region founded in 1897. By that time, the wine of Neszmély was already associated with good quality amongst Hungarian wine experts.
By the middle of the 20th century, the area merged into the Bársonyos-Császári wine region, and the centuries-old traditions were replaced by working on a farmers' co-operative basis and industrial viticulture. Neszmély gained back its title as an indipendent wine region only in 1977.
PANORAMIC VIEW FROM A HILLTOP
The centre of the whole Neszmély wine region and our winery is the group of several vineyards between Neszmély and Dunaszentmiklós, more accurately it's the Meleges Hill that offers a breathtaking panoramic view over the Danube. Our winery was named after this amazing picturesque "hilltop".
The Neszmély wine region hasn't been that well-known amongst Hungarian wine drinkers that the vineyards can be mentioned by their names, but owing to the wines with crisp taste and good structure coming from this vicinity the name of Meleges Hill, Gőte Slope, Páskom, or Látó Hill may sound familiar to a wider audiance soon too.
The uniqueness of the wine region is given by the vineyards with different locations, soil composition and microclimates. The soil of the wine region is mostly luvisol on top of loess, though in some areas it can be rendzina formed on dolomite, even luvisol formed on gritstone or marl. The region’s climate is cooler and wetter than the average climate of Hungary, the weather is usually really windy, although temperature fluctuations are low and the number of hours of sunshine is quite high, which is also detectable in the taste of the wines made here.