With our wine named Attila, we showcase the very best our family has to offer through wine. This is our strongest expression, through which we convey the unique natural characteristics of the Villány wine region. That is why we call it the essence of our winery.
Despite this, it is by no means the best-known A. GERE wine among the general public. This is due to the extremely limited number of bottles produced and the fact that the wine is not widely available in stores. Our top-of-the-range wine is available exclusively at the winery and through a select few retail and restaurant partners.
What’s interesting about the history of Attila is that we didn’t call the wine that at first. In the early years, we referred to it as “Grand Vin de Villány”. For a time, the wine formed part of an important personal experiment. Through this experiment, we sought to answer the question of how far we could restrict the yield of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Merlot in the Villány wine region, making it an important milestone in our learning process.
We first produced this wine in 2000, but we took its experimental status so seriously that we didn’t put a label on the bottle for a long time. The 2002 vintage was the first to be released under the name Grand Vin de Villány. By this time, Attila Gere, the founder of our winery, had another goal in mind for this wine besides expanding his own knowledge: he wanted to demonstrate the highest level of quality that we are capable of achieving.
The next turning point came with a visit from a wine merchant from Luxembourg. Attila Gere placed a bottle of wine on the table for him to taste. He said it was fantastic and that it would be a shame to give it a name also used for mediocre wines in Bordeaux. He suggested the name Attila because, as he put it, ‘This is your signature; this wine is you. Put your signature on the bottle.”
When producing Attila, after the 16- to 18-month barrel aging process used for our premium wines, we taste through all the barrels. At this stage, we select which of the new wines to use for our top wines, and we set aside the seven highest-rated barrels first for Attila. However, Attila goes beyond the trio of Kopar, Solus and Villányi Franc, not only in this regard, but also because we produce it less frequently than those wines. It is the pinnacle of our portfolio; we only bottle it when we have something truly special to express.
This wine is a blend of three grape varieties: Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, and Merlot. In this case, however, we don’t even have a rough recipe; there are no fixed proportions—only the vintage and the style we envision dictate the blend.
If you think that Attila is a closely guarded wine, you’re right, and you’ll feel even more so when you learn that, in some vintage in which we produce the Attila blend, we also bottle a single-varietal wine of the same name. This involves an even smaller batch: the contents of just two selected barrels, less than 700 bottles. The grape variety used for this wine depends entirely on which of the three varieties proves to be the most brilliant and outstanding in that particular vintage.
To truly get to know our winery and experience our take on Villány, a tasting of the Attila is a must. Our flagship red wine, named after the winery’s founder Attila Gere, is an unforgettable experience for lovers of great red wines.
