Hungarian Olaszrizling or Welschriesling 25 to look out for

Olaszrizling is Hungary’s most widely-planted quality white grape, and is not the same as Riesling, known there as Rhine Riesling, or Rajnai Rizling. It produces a crisp, light, fairly non-aromatic white wine with a clear mineral structure.

Origin of the name

1500 years ago, Anglo-Saxon invaders arrived in Britain, and called the Britons Wēalas, which today gives us Wales, the Welsh, and Welschriesling.

The term Wēalas comes from Walhaz and the Volcae, a Gaulish tribe whose name later came to be used by Germanic tribes to describe any Latin-speaking Celtic people in the Roman Empire. Its meaning was generalised to ‘Latin speaking foreigner’, drifting from there on to simply ‘Latin’.

This gave us Wallachia, Wallonia, and indirectly even Gaul. It also gave us Welschriesling, or Latin Riesling. Olaszrizling is simply Hungarian for Italian Riesling.

Every little area of central Europe claims Olaszrizling for itself, with many convincing theories suggesting that it is indeed appropriately named, and comes from northern Italy. It is mostly absent from Italy today, concentrated instead in the former Austro-Hungarian empire and along the Danube.

It is most widely planted in Croatia, where it is known as Grasevina (4500ha). There are quite significant clonal differences across the area, and the styles are not necessarily directly comparable. In Austria it is known as Welschriesling, which is the name it goes by the most internationally. It's fairly in common in Moravia and Slovakia too, where it goes by Vlašský Ryzlink, but 'vlasky' is thankfully still widely understood!

Style

As Olaszrizling, it produces crisp, sharply acidic wines with gentle, almost neutral fruit which allowed it to be harvested late to produce off dry and sometimes almost sweet wines. As the fashion for this style faded away a wave of ‘improving’ in the early 2000s left many Olaszrizlings either big and flabby or plain acidic and neutral and as such were poorly regarded.

In recent years there has been a move to restore this variety to greater glory, possibly influenced by the rise in popularity of dry Furmint. The grapes natural acidity is often extremely high, often balanced by intense ripe fruit - delicious during a meal, but the high acidity can be heartburn inducing during a long tasting, especially when tasting younger wines. A few producers brought out some older vintages which showed great balanced charm.

Although fairly common across Hungary, it is most widely planted around Lake Balaton (Europe's largest lake) in the west of the country, where it is even at the centre of Balatonbor, or ‘Balaton wine’, an initiative to produce straightforward Olaszrizling made in tank - no oak - in order to show the influence of the different terroirs around the lake.

Olaszrizling can convey terroir quite well, for instance adopting tropical fruit and pineapple aromatics on the northern volcanic shores of Lake Balaton, and crisper mineral notes in the South.

It is fairly easy to distinguish from Riesling (known regionally as Rhine Riesling), most easily through the total absence of any kerozene notes on the nose. It also often has a chalky minerality which Riesling lacks.

My top 25 Hungarian Olaszrizlings