Magazine: Watershed – thoughts on this year's Buda Castle Wine Festival

Buda Castle Wine Festival broke a negative record this year: there were hardly 20,000 visitors. Obviously the worse weather of the last 23 years and the extreme rainfall had a lot to do with this. Organisers did their best this year too, there were Wine University courses, visitors had the chance to taste wine specialties and they could taste wines that won gold or silver medal at this year’s VinaAgora, but didn’t have their own stand at the festival. However, the weather isn’t the only reason why the Buda Castle Wine Festival wasn’t a success this year. Winemakers say they have to pay too much for being present with a stand. It is needless to say that those wineries that did come had to sell their products at rather high prices to return their costs – and let us not forget that fact that visitors also had to pay HUF 2,900 for tickets! It seemed that most winemakers didn’t come personally, they sent hostesses instead. For a couple of years the festival’s culinary offerings have been criticised. This year was no different, even though there were exceptions such as the Farm Chicken stand or the place selling artisan baked goods. Perhaps the biggest problem this year was that state support only covered 3 percent of the festival budget – in former years this ratio was 15 percent. All in all, the Buda Castle Wine Festival’s existence is in danger at the moment. The organisers made it clear that they are open to new ideas, now the only question is whether they can mend the earlier concept or they reached a watershed and have to come up with a totally new concept.