Wine in Hungarian Folk Culture

Melinda Égető (Budapest) 

Hungarians have traditionally been considered a wine-drinking nation till this day both here at home and abroad. According to the first exact statistics of viniculture (Keleti 1875), at the end of the nineteenth century Hungary was the second most important wine producing country in Europe after France, concerning the size of wine-growing regions. In the past four hundred years, the other two traditional alcoholic drinks, beer and brandy (pálinka), were of course also known, produced and consumed in smaller or larger quantities depending on the region (Balázs 1987; Kisbán 1997). The famous vine-lands of historic Hungary are all located inside the Carpathian Basin, and therefore they roughly coincide with the coherent Hungarianspeaking territory. The border regions of the Carpathian Basin and the Carpathian Mountains themselves are not suitable for wine production because of climatic reasons, but these regions have been inhabited for centuries mostly by Slovakians, Romanians, and Ukrainians who are traditionally brandy drinkers. Traditional beer drinking was limited to fairly small circles of consumers among the first two peoples, the Slovakians and Romanians; from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century beer was favored mostly by urban middle classes of German origin. It was first towards the end of the nineteenth century that the pleasure of beer drinking started to become popular in other layers of the society as well (Borsody Bevilaqua 1931). Although the locations of the wine-growing regions are based on climatic reasons, their coincidence with ethnic divisions had transformed the relation of man and drink to a national custom through the centuries. Of course, that does not mean that the Hungarians were the only wine-drinking nation in the Carpathian Basin. All those ethnic groups (the Germans, Serbs, Croatians, Slovenians, and Slovakians) who had settled in good wine-growing regions also produced and consumed this noble drink. On the other hand, the Hungarians also liked brandy, especially in the transition zones between wine-drinking and brandy-drinking areas (Keleti 1887). One thing is certain, namely that the Hungarians settled almost exclusively in regions that were suitable for viniculture. The only significant exception is the Székelyföld surrounded by the Eastern Carpathians.

In Hungary, wine production has played an important part both in everyday life and in the economy. Wine has been one of the most saleable products of the country since the Middle Ages. It promoted the development of towns, brought additional income for farmsteads in villein tenure, and provided a marketable form of tax in kind for landowners. Grapes and wine also became integral parts of folk nourishment, in a lesser degree as a fruit, and a greater degree as a drink. Wines of low alcoholic content were substituted for the rare treasure of good drinking water in everyday life, while good quality wines were indispensable necessaries of festive occasions. Wine-related sayings, proverbs, songs, and customs provide an extremely rich folklore material, which also demonstrates the exceptional role of wine in our folk culture (Égető 2001).

The extent of general wine consumption and its changes in the course of history are fairly uncertain. There is no doubt, however, that drinking for the sake of drunkenness has always been present both in the Hungarian and in other European societies to a certain extent, sometimes in lesser, at other times in greater degree, depending on the time period. Beside hard drinking, there has also been another form of alcohol consumption the occasions, manner, and extent of which have been regulated by traditions, and which should therefore be considered as an integral part of culture. Both written sources and personal memories recorded during ethnographical field trips seem to indicate that in the earlier centuries, regular, everyday wine drinking was more general in the wine-growing regions than it is today, regardless of social and maybe even of age and gender differences. It is not a bit surprising if we consider that according to the vinicultural statistics of 1873 (Keleti 1875) there were approximately 355,000 hectares (876,850 acres) of vineyards in Hungary. On this vast vinicultural area, approximately six million hectoliters of wine was produced a year. One third of it was exported, but four million hectoliters still remained for domestic use. The significance of home or family wine drinking is well demonstrated by the fact that the 355,000 hectares (876,850 acres) were divided among almost one million vine-growers, i.e. the size of an average vineyard hardly reached 0.5 hectares (1.235 acres). Behind this small average size there were hundreds of thousands of peasants’ vineyards of only a couple hundred square fathoms (1 square fathom = 38.32 square feet). The work in the vineyard was usually done by the owner himself with the help of his wife, and the vintage primarily served the needs of the family, and only some of it was sold at the local market. An average vine-grower with some self-esteem drank only his own wine and offered the same to his guests. Other vintners’ wines were purchased only if the family’s own vintage was insufficient, or for weddings, baptisms, and funeral feasts to provide a wider variety. It was regarded as a shame even as late as in the interwar period if a vine-grower went to the local tavern to drink wine.