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The winery is a family business, with the whole five-member family involved to a greater or lesser extent, although our parents, siblings and friends are also a great help.<\/p>\n We work according to traditional methods in the winery, with our cellars carved into the deep loess, thus ensuring constant temperatures and providing a marvellous backdrop. Since even our largest tank is only 1,100 litres, there is no overheating at the cellar temperature of 12\u00b0C, just naturally regulated fermentation. Our technology sounds simple: spontaneous fermentation, i.e. without cultured yeasts, and low levels of sulphur as well as long ageing on the fine lees, in oak and in bottle.<\/em><\/strong> However, since we do not wish to intervene too much in the natural process, this work is sometimes more difficult than you might think. We use both stainless steel tanks and oak barrels, including 220 and 530-litre barrels made from Zempl\u00e9n oak as well as some barrels made from older, American oak. Depending on the grapes we\u2019ve harvested, we decide what the wine might need, and then, of course, nature often overrides our ideas\u2026<\/p>\n \u201cEvery vintage is different; what\u2019s more, we don\u2019t have decades or centuries of precedents to follow, so we are constantly learning about our vineyards\u2019 capabilities and our grape varieties\u2019 caprices. I am a trained viticulturist and oenologist and, as a wine writer and specialist consultant, I\u2019ve travelled around the Carpathian basin and the world\u2019s wine regions. Therefore, I know all about large-scale methods, I know how to make \u201cconsumer-friendly\u201d wines easily and quickly. However, I chose a different way. I could say untrodden, but more and more people are treading this path…\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n We make a wide range of wines from various grape varieties, from our own grapes or those purchased from neighbours. Our own grapes are cultivated 100% organically.<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 We love experimenting. Late harvest, maturation on the fine lees, white wine fermented on its skins, traditional method sparkling wine, long barrel ageing, blends… We\u2019d like to create wines characteristic to the region, yet which please both our palates and those of our target audience. We can only make one attempt per year, so we try to get the maximum from the harvest in every vintage. Of course, we already have some wines that we make in a similar way each year, although we may have to tweak a little each time due to the vagaries of the vintage: for example, Veltelini and Riesling.\u00a0 They are slowly but surely being joined by St Frank and Pinot Noir.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/granium.sk\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/attila-200x300.jpg\")
<\/em>\u201cI was already getting into winemaking while I was at university in the nineties and made my first wine in 1997. Since then, a lot of water has flowed down the river Garam (Hron). In 2006, I moved the press and barrels from my small cellar in Lel\u00e9d (Lel\u2019a) to a traditional press-house in Garamk\u00f6vesd (<\/em>Kamenica nad Hronom) built in 1882 and then also bought two derelict cellars nearby. We currently farm 2.5 hectares, but our land is growing a little in size each year, the cellars are becoming more attractive and the estate is developing.\u201d \u2013 March 2019, Attila Ge\u00f6ncze\u00f6l, winemaker \u2013 \u201cwe still have a lot of work ahead of us before we achieve our dreams, but we should never lose sight of where we have come from and who we are. The journey is as important as the goal…\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/granium.sk\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/PGT_vedjegy_fb.jpg\")
<\/a>We are experimenting with classic, bottle-fermented sparkling wine production<\/em><\/strong>, as we see that we have wonderful grapes available for this every year.<\/p>\n