It is an open secret among winemakers that a number of scandals have occurred similar to the one recently linked to Hungarian winemaker Béla Vincze. He is not the only one to have tried adding some body to his wine by using glycerine. While most winemakers stay within the regulation limits and make quality wine through honest means, gossip within the profession has it that the winemakers of the Eger Region - the one that has suffered a virtually fatal blow due to the Vincze case - could not even make it to the top three in regard to the amount of glycerine used. The waters are further muddied by the fact that officially the Directorate of Wine Qualification, operating within the Central Agricultural Office responsible for the safeguarding of the quality of Hungarian wines, only automatically checks the glycerine content of wine produced for export. The recent scandal can only have created such a severe response because excess levels of glycerine were found in the wine of a star winemaker which had been selected as Wine of the Year in 2005. By law, only specified amounts of certain additives are allowed in Hungarian wines, a practice which follows EU standards. Glycerine, a chemical naturally found in wine, is not one of these.  However, this is not the case on the other side of the Atlantic.

"Wine made in North- and South America basically only has to meet one requirement: to be as marketable as possible," said specialist journalist Gabriella Szabó. This effectively means that the winemakers of California and Chile, for example, are allowed to enhance consumer value by adding virtually anything to their wine, up to thirty percent of its volume, as long as it isnot harmful to health --. It is difficult to compete with these artificially refined and "perfected" products. There is a consensus among winemakers that the Hungarian regulation concerning additives allowed in drinks is satisfactory and that the problem is rather the administrative burden imposed on them by the system. Winemakers in Hungary are weighed down by an excessive amount of unnecessary cost. In light of the recent incident there is increasingly less chance for a new quality control system to be put in place in which the qualification of wine required for distribution would no longer be based on chemical analysis carried out by a central authority, but instead by laboratories operating locally in the wine regions. It was a local laboratory that certified the failed Vincze wines.

The glycerine scandal intensified the conflict between the two schools of winemaking in Hungary. Adherents of handcrafted wine production say that the quality of the wine can only be determined by the basic ingredient, i.e. the grapes, with no external additives allowed apart from the sulphur and aromas naturally released by the wood of the barrels.

The other school claims that anything can be done to the wine should be allowableif the winemaker regards it necessary.Such vineries freely add tannin powder, concentrates and other aromatisers to their wines. Viticulture journalist László Alkonyi believes that it is now time for the greats of Hungarian winemaking to decide what should constitute Hungarian wine: should it be produced "in a lab" like in the Americas, or should it follow the European tradition and be handcrafted. Genuine handicraft wines could even be marked as such and be sold at higher prices.

The glycerine affair could well be a watershed in the clash between the two schools, said Alkonyi. Although no parallel can be drawn between this affair and the glycol scandal that shattered Austrian winemaking in the eighties (in Austria glycol, an especially hazardous component of antifreeze liquids, was added to wine), the severity with which the Austrians handled the case should be applied here, too.

Our neighbouring country saw a complete regeneration in the winemaking profession as a result of the measures taken. Whether Hungarians are able to act accordingly largely depends on the determination shown by the authorities: are we in Hungary able to launch a large-scale campaign to check all the Hungarian winemakers, even if it might eventually lead to some great figures of the profession being exposed.

Gabriella Mészáros feels that the media blew the glycerine scandal out of all proportion and caused excessive damage to the historical Eger wine region to no avail, since it has not brought about a purge within the profession. She believes that more attention should be focussed on the massive amounts of Italian and Spanish wine of dubious quality, flooding into Hungary without any restriction, which is then bottled and put on the bottom shelf in the shops of the Great Hungarian Plain as Hungarian wine.

Mészáros would welcome regulations that provide more built-in safeguards for honest Hungarian producers.

In regard to its scale, Hungarian wine production is a drop in the ocean in Europe; yet, winemakers producing for export will have to go through a difficult period as a result of the scandal. Péter Nagy, the commercial director of Nyakas Winery in Etyek thinks that the overall reputation of Hungarian wines abroad has been significantly damaged, since people only hear about wine forgery but do not know which wines and vineries are involved. Nyakas Winery have several exporters who also distribute Vincze wines, so they have every right to fear an exaggerated international response to the recent Hungarian scandal which could then lead to detrimental effects on the wine sales of other regions, too. Up to now, only the Eger winemakers have been adversely affected.        

The secret of the wine cellar

A few weeks ago, the news hit like a bomb shell: the 2005 winemaker of the year, Béla Vincze of Eger, had tried to add more body to his wines by using glycerine. Synthetic glycerine exceeding the permitted amount was first detected in a sample of a 2007 Bull's Blood by the Central Agricultural Office. Vincze first said it was not his own wine, claiming that the wine in which the excess glycerine was found was wine of uncertain origin which he had taken over from an acquaintance.. Later, the inspectors took another sample and found that Vincze used glycerine in his own wines to give them a fuller body. His 2005 Bull's Blood and Cabernet Franc contained more than 14 grams of glycerine, when this level would only be 6-10 grams naturally. The fine for adulteration could come to as much as 3000 Forints per litre. The winery book records 25 thousand litres of the wine that did not pass the test; however, that amount was not all found at the location. If the entire recorded amount were to turn up, the fine could be over 75 million Forints. For now, the winery has been ordered to close for thirty days and only the harvested grapes have been allowed to be taken over; in addition, the winery book must be set in order. A twist in the story is that the certificate of origin issued for the adulterated wine and authenticated by the local head of wine-growers was also a forgery. As a result of this, the winemaker and the head of the local wine-growers have been reported for falsification of an official document.