Helyszín címkék:
Learn more about murci (unfermented grape juice), this rich, crazy, wonderful juice!
Szabó Sára
“What is murci? Everyone loves murci!” – begins the introduction with the sincere feelings of Krisztián Gyukli, the young winemaker of Gyukli Winery in Balatonfüred. But even before we get carried away (woe betide us if two people who love murci start talking), it is worth introducing our protagonist in more detail. When the grapes are pressed after the harvest, the result is fresh must: an extremely sweet, (still) non-alcoholic drink that is a great favourite also with children. After cleaning and settling, fermentation starts within a few hours under ideal conditions and lasts about 10-14 days. Then it is recommended to taste the murci!
“When the fresh must from the grapes starts to ferment and the yeasts start to convert the sugars in the must into alcohol, flavours and aromas are released that are not present in the fermented and settled new wine. The very intense thiol, terpene, ester compounds found in murci are often more exciting than a mature new wine,”
says Krisztián Gyukli.
Everyone has his or her own murci
The beauty of it all is that during the aforementioned 14-day fermentation period, murci can show a thousand faces. You can taste from it within a range between half a percent alcohol to the fully mature 12 percent. Some people prefer it sweeter when it can’t knock you on the head easily, while others prefer it when the wine is fully fermented.
The drink, known there as Sturm, has been popular in Germany and Vienna for decades. Krisztián Gyukli has experienced this first-hand at one of the world’s leading viticultural and oenological research institutes, the State Wine Institute in Freiburg. “During this decade, I've seen the murci festivals come one after the other as autumn approaches. The sweet, fizzy drink is often accompanied by a special onion fried dough, which is most similar to bread scone. After my studies in Germany, I returned to Balatonfüred, full of energy and with a love of wine, and we organised the first Balatonfüred festival” – recalls the young winemaker. All this happened in autumn 2016, in the belief that the Hungarian people would love murci as much as their “brothers-in-law” (meaning Austrians).
“It was not only the adults who came to taste, the children came too. They poured the mash from the fermenting blue grapes and came with me with a tractor to the vineyard – recalls Krisztián Gyukli. The bright start has led to an even brighter future, with more and more wineries joining the event every year. It was clear that people like murci, but introducing a new item is not just a matter of taste in gastronomy. The year 2021 brought a big change: under the new wine law, it was possible to market new wine still in fermentation, which was not possible in practice before. However, since 2021, a winery may place on the market or dispatch from Hungary a maximum of 100 hectolitres of murci per year without organoleptic and analytical testing. Thanks in part to the new wine law, and in part to the work of young winemakers, not only Balatonfüred, but also Ábrahámhegy and Kishegy in Balatonlelle now have a murci festival.
Hungarian cuisine is ready for the murci!
Despite being more freely marketed, it is extremely difficult to integrate murci into the catering industry, as it is a fermenting drink that produces no less than a litre of gas every minute. Even if not in restaurants and catering establishments, it is all the more worth pouring at wine tours, winery visits and festivals. In keeping with German practice (and perhaps a little more creatively than that), it can be paired with hearty Hungarian soups, pies made from the fruits of autumn, not to mention the classic bread and fat combination. Overall, murci is a great match for the spicy, round flavours of Hungarian cuisine. So let’s get drinking murci!
