We have long been anticipating being a part of the grape harvest with our friends, the Kovacs family (Aniko spent a week with us in August). It was scheduled to coincide with the visit of friends Scott and Judy from Michigan. It was their family that hosted Balazs and Dori when they studied at Holland Christian. Also joining us were friends of Scott and Judy who live here in Budapest. So it was the three American couples, along with the Kovacs family, and other friends of the family, that worked in the vineyard on Saturday.
According to Tony, our host and vintner, it was a lean year for grapes. Too much cold weather, not enough sunshine, too much rain. The family vineyard produced about 600 liters of must (grapejuice) this year, maybe a third of what is normal, with a sugar content that was not high enough to produce good wine or palinka. But we certainly had fun seeing the process as our harvested grapes were brought to the house to be crushed, the must pumped into the waiting barrels in the cellar, and the final step of pressing the grape skins to get out every drop of juice.
The harvest is a family event that brings good friends together. It's also a celebration of another season of grape growing and wine production, and plenty of last year's wine and palinka was enjoyed by all of us. Aniko, Tony, Dori, and Balazs also made sure we didn't go hungry, providing us with a lot of traditional foods that featured wild boar which Tony had shot earlier this year. To round out our celebration, a friend of the family joined us for five hours, singing folk songs to his own accordian accompaniment. He was even able to lead us in a few American songs.
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