Attila  Homonna is a young, talented winemaker in  Erdobenve, north of Tokaj. He follows his instincts in the actual process of creating his wines. His top wine comes from the Hatari vineyard with very old, traditional, small berry Furmint vines. You’ll find his vineyard close to Tolcsva, in the northern parts of Tokaj. Rany is another ‘forgotten vineyard’ which the shy Hungarian winemaker Attila Homonna discovered few years ago and which he describes as “eating up machines and man.”  But we can only thank him, for the effort, harvesting such a great Furmint, the indigenous Hungarian grape variety. Attila’s first vintage produced of the Rány ended up in 500 bottles from the more than 40 years old vines. With an alcohol content ending at 12.5% one can of course wonder how did he manage in such a warm area? When we met Attila, he said: „I’ve been running a simple estate since 1999, making two wines per year. I blend estate wines solely from hand-cultivated grapes from small parcels with extremely low yields. In 2011, I had more than I’d ever done before in my life. We broke up the cover crops between the grape rows and I deep ploughed so that every single drop of rain could be utilized. I was worried about the warmth and the tannins resulting from the thicker skins. However, with the quick harvest and grape work we solved this as well. The terroir and I are a given, and the grapes and the winemaker both adapt slightly to the weather.” Our Austrian winemaker friend Roland Velich who produces the most spectacular Blaufrankisch wines in Austria has discovered Attila Hammonna’s wines and we are lucky that he agreed to give us a few bottles for Thailand.