Soil

Both climate and soil are dominant contributors to the quality of wine. For the metabolism of the vine both roots and leaves are needed.

The sugar content of the grapes is influenced by light and the humidity of the air just as much as the balanced supply of nutrients.

Soil conditions play a dominant contrubuting role in making the character, the odour and taste, and the extract content of the wines.

The distinctive, barren, cone-shaped peak of Szársomlyó in the middle of the Villány Hills with its sugar-loaf like appearance can easily deceive visitors to the wine region. It may look like a volcanic mountain from a distance, although it is primarily built of limestone, which provides precious soil for the vineyards.

Around Nagyharsány one can see even on the roadside that the larger part of the deep soil of the vineyards is made of limestone. All soils are either neutral or slightly alkaline. This layer can be topped by soils which are

• loess with lime content or
• clay.

On the plateau and on the northern slopes we find the following soils:

• rendzina (a word of Slavic origin, it means rattling) and
• chernozem soils.

The main soil components of the Villány Wine Region are

• dolomite,
• marl,
• Cretaceous limestone,
• loess cover with clay, in some places with sand content.

The vines of the region are almost exclusively grown on soils which are hard but have good water holding capacity.

The cultivation of the soils is a hard work for the farmers. In the vineyards of Villány and Palkonya soils are more appropriate for blue grapes, while west of Kisharsány soils are better for growing white grapes. In the soils that are hard to cultivate, vines producing grapes of outstanding quality are grown – with appropiate technologies and limited yields.

Source:
Haraszti, Gyula: Villányi Borok (Villány wines) – Kossuth Kiadó, 2002