A great white from Vega Sicilia,
still completely unknown!
I can already hear you thinking: “what is he talking about, a white wine from Vega Sicilia…?”
And you’re right: Vega Sicilia is, first and foremost, everything that defines top-level red wine.
But did you know that this iconic estate was also one of the first to invest in Tokaj after the fall of the Iron Curtain in the late 1980s?
Already in 1993, the Alvarez family (the Spanish owners of Vega Sicilia) decided that Tokaj had extraordinary potential for great wines. And that potential did not come out of nowhere. Louis XIV himself called Tokaj wines the absolute top… “C’est le roi des vins, et le vin des rois”. And if a Frenchman says it… who are we to disagree? 😊
But it still took many years — and major investments — before the Alvarez family could return to what Louis XIV described in the 17th century. Fifty years of communism had damaged everything. Quality had not been a priority for decades.
It was only in 2017, 23 years after starting the project, that they finally released their top white wine. Pure Vega Sicilia: it must be the best possible before it reaches the market. And if that takes more than 20 years… so be it.
Why have you never tasted this 2017 or the later vintages? Simple.
Quantities were extremely small at first, and they only released a fraction of the “Petracs vineyard” onto the market — that’s the parcel we are talking about.
4,700 bottles from 4 hectares of vineyard.
100% Furmint, 60-year-old vines on a steep, mineral-rich slope.
For that reason, we were obliged to sell the wine per bottle and only in combination with their entry wine Mandolás.
But fortunately, that has now changed!
We received the new Petracs 2021 two weeks ago. Where we previously had barely 60 bottles for Belgium, we now have 240.
This white wine is their absolute flagship — and quite simply the very best Hungarian white wine. As you know, Tokaj is mainly known for its sweet wines. With their Oremus project, Vega Sicilia was the first to produce top-quality dry whites. And by now, we know these wines age beautifully.
In its youth, the wine shows plenty of minerality and fresh acidity. Over the years it becomes denser and broader. Furmint is not a widely known grape, hence the following comparison:
young, like a mineral and complex Chenin; later, broader like a great white Burgundy,
always with that persistent minerality that makes it so captivating.
Why do I say this will be worth at least three times more in ten years?
Because of the market.
Right now, almost nobody knows this wine. Only 4,700 bottles exist. Vega Sicilia sits at number 1 on the global wine index (Liv-ex). And production will never be higher.
La Buena Vida has the largest allocation worldwide of this wine — because we believe in it tremendously. This is top-level wine.
I hope you will trust me and give this exceptional white a place in your cellar. It deserves it…