ZSOLT MAUL – Premium Wine Must Exist-and It Must Be Expensive

We do not recommend that young winemakers drink, but the history of Maul winery proves that fate sometimes likes to work with an elevated blood alcohol level. In Zsolt Maul’s life, two drunken episodes changed everything.

Villány has its classics, its institutions and its family dynasties. Then there is a man whom none of those words quite captures. In conversation, Zsolt Maul is most often described using two words that sound like a film title: fenegyerek and lator.

The first describes his character. In Hungarian, fenegyerek means more than a rogue or a bad boy. It is someone who swims against the current, does things his own way, takes risks and, when everything falls apart, has the audacious habit of coming back stronger. The second word is a key to his style. Lator is a wine and a place, a bistro and a symbol, but also a code for Maul’s signature: red, dense, powerful and spirited, with a mischievous smile that seems to say:

– Welcome to Villány. Here, we don’t drink merely to be polite.

And there is something else: twice in his life, a few drinks too many sent him down an entirely different track. One episode quite literally led him to a vineyard. The other brought him a German partner. To be clear, this is no recommendation that young winemakers drink, merely proof that fate sometimes likes to work with an elevated blood alcohol level.

People call Maul Villány’s fenegyerek “with good reason”, but that is only the title. The subtitle is an adventure film: success and collapse, gullibility and professionalism, bankruptcy and a comeback. Barely halfway through his life, he has already experienced both hell and heaven, the kind of experience a person either fails to survive or emerges from like a phoenix.

As a motto for his hedonistic outlook, he sometimes poses a poetic question:

– I don’t know which I love more: the pursuit of pleasure or the pleasure of the hunt.

They say he is like his wines: full of surprises and secrets, strength and passion, with an individuality you could never mistake for anything else in Villány.

Asked where he began, he returns to 1999. That was when he decided to create a winery. He did not come from nowhere: his family had made wine for generations, although it had never been a great wine estate. His grandfather and father made wine and owned almost a hectare of vineyard, selling most of their grapes and wine to the state farm, as people in the area had done for decades.

His first major break, paradoxically, came through education. Although he studied at an institution bearing the name of Gábor Dénes, the Nobel laureate and inventor of holography, Zsolt discovered no new law of physics in Budapest. He discovered something more important: his path lay in the vineyard, and instinct often knew more than theory. He abandoned higher education and returned to Villány.

His father was crucial at that point. A successful entrepreneur, he had a family business in antique furniture and joinery, money to invest and the example of Villány’s established names-Bock, Gere, Tiffán and Polgár-who had already shown that wine could provide a serious livelihood. Several million forints went into the wine venture. They bought a cellar on the main street and established their first small hospitality operation.

This is the first thing to understand about Maul: from the beginning, he thought of wine as a stage, an experience, a place where people gathered. For six to eight years from 2000, the winery relied mainly on hospitality, while buying a few hectares and purchasing grapes “from someone different every year”. It was a somewhat muddled phase, but typical of those unruly beginnings: working, growing, searching.

The turning point came in 2006. A conflict with his father led to his father’s departure from the business. Strangely, that suited Maul. His father played it safe: no loans, no grant applications, no risks. Maul was a fenegyerek. He believed that nothing could be built without risk.

– I threw myself into the goulash – he says, recalling how he began expanding on borrowed money.

It was easy enough at the time: the EU era, confident banks, an optimistic market.

A two-hectare plot also entered the picture, rezoned for development. The bank valued it highly and granted a large loan without restrictions on its use. Here, Maul appears as both a talent and a cautionary tale: the first thing he did with the money was book a trip to Mauritius, costing almost three million forints, “because he thought he had earned it”. That sentence contains both charm and catastrophe. Yet the same injection of credit also pushed the winery forward.

He met Ákos Ruppert, bought the harvest from ten hectares and resolved a crucial problem: consistency of quality. He also obtained EU funding for stainless-steel tanks, a press, a filter and crushers. Between 2007 and 2010, Villány was booming: crowds, the pincesor, or cellar street, new establishments opening, genuine demand and money circulating.

Then came the foreign-currency loans. With the Swiss franc at a low, Maul borrowed. The exchange rate rose, repayments increased by sixty to seventy per cent, and turnover fell as his guests’ finances also deteriorated. A monthly repayment of eight hundred thousand forints became one and a half million. When turnover halves and obligations double, neither talent nor a love of wine can save you. By the end of 2011, he had to declare bankruptcy.

The picture was brutal: every day, the bailiff took something-a car, land, a property, a vineyard. His last refuge was the new winery project and the EU funding he had received for its construction. But he could no longer obtain credit. A “rescuer” appeared: an acquaintance took a fifty-per-cent stake. Construction began, and a little luck returned. Then came friction and a decision that Maul should withdraw because “they wanted a new loan”, which he could not secure. The promise that “half will always be yours” was never put in writing. A few weeks later, he was told that everything had been sold and that he “had nothing to do with it”. By 2012, everything was lost.

Then began his exile. They locked the house, got into the car and left for Germany: Maul, his former wife and their two children. He started as a waiter for an Italian family that owned eighteen ice-cream parlours. After a few weeks, in another fenegyerek move, he made the owner a proposal: he would pay rent and buy their ice cream, but turn the Italian restaurant into a Hungarian one. The Italian laughed:

– Great. You’ll go bust.

They struck a deal.

His father came to help. Within a month, they refitted the restaurant. Maul brought over a cook from Hungary. He served the guests; his former wife looked after the children. Within three months, the whole town knew who they were, and tables were being booked two months in advance. This was Maul’s second, often overlooked talent: an instinct for an audience, and for the stage surrounding wine.

That episode stabilised their lives. The bank debt remained, but everything else fell into place. Then, in 2015, they returned “just for a visit” to the Villány festival.

There came the first drunken episode that changed his life.

On Friday evening, he got drunk. Around midnight, an old friend spent hours persuading him to buy grapes. Maul refused, saying he could do nothing with them. In the morning, the phone rang:

– Come and look at the vineyard you bought.

Maul could not believe it. He checked the money in his pocket: a substantial sum was missing. He had paid a deposit. Stunned and hungover, he went to see the plot in Siklós. Then came the things that always drew him back: nature, the vineyard, the green tranquillity, the feeling that he had to return.

They agreed that he would process the grapes and sell the wine in Germany. His wife initially told him where to go:

– We agreed we weren’t going to struggle any more.

But they sat down and talked. The children disliked Germany. The decision was made: they would return. With his father and a friend, he processed fifteen tonnes of grapes and made his “first-first again-wine”. His father tended it in the cellar. Maul settled his commitments in Germany, and they came home.

There was one more Italian lesson on the way back. They tried to sell the equipment, but the Italians complicated matters. Maul invoked a clause in the contract, emptied the premises and brought two lorryloads of equipment home. Most of it ended up as scrap, but the message was clear: he was returning with nothing, and returning all the same.

From 2016, he made his decision: premium only. He also made lighter wines to survive while the premium reds matured-Portugieser, Kékfrankos and Francba-but the goal was clearer than ever.

Then came the second drunken episode that changed his life: Easter Monday, 2017.

There had been a big party on Sunday, and he had got drunk again. On Monday, barely able to stand with his hangover, he was approached by a guest wanting several cases of Lator. Maul tried to put him off, but the guest insisted, so he got up and dealt with the order. Now, he thought, he could lie down. Then his former wife told him that three Germans were on the terrace. They had come to see him. Maul said he could not even face water, but they insisted on a toast. They were cheerful and likeable, the conversation began, and Maul talked and talked and talked. This was his element.

One of the Germans wanted to buy substantial quantities “to help”. They discussed a deal. Maul showed them wines from the new barrels: Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Merlot. He told them about his idea for Dávid, a cuvée priced above ten thousand forints a bottle, then still rare territory in Villány. But Maul was already thinking further ahead: thirty thousand, then a hundred thousand. They were delighted. In effect, he was telling them what kind of future he wanted to buy.

After dinner at Attila Gere’s, the German offered a partnership. He would act as a merchant, use his contacts and sell the wines-on two conditions: premium quality and high prices.

Maul replied:

– Those are my conditions too.

For years, this man financed the winery in advance. In the first round, he paid for seventy per cent of its stock. New purchases followed, an elegant gold, black and silver design was introduced, and its reputation grew. Maul understood something a fenegyerek knows instinctively: premium quality also needs a stage.

That is why Lator matters. The Cabernet Franc, whose name evokes a rogue or joker, became the foundation of the identity, but also a wine bistro, guest houses and the way visitors experienced Maul. Lator became a way into the story. It is no coincidence that wherever Maul appears, the largest crowd tends to gather: his wines have theatricality and substance, volume and discipline.

Meanwhile, another revealing detail emerged. Maul says there is no pyramid at his winery, with basic wines at the bottom and premium wines at the top.

– Even our bottom tier is premium.

Tastings begin with Lator, already triumphing at competitions. It is an ambition people either mock or respect. In Villány, he was initially seen as an outsider, with resistance from the older generation and perhaps some envy. He had to sit down and talk. Today, he is on decent terms with everyone, although in daily contact with only a few.

The second great comeback came between 2021 and 2023. Fate dealt another card: the opportunity to buy back the property through insolvency proceedings. Maul knew that premium winemaking needed a winery. But again, he could neither build nor obtain a loan. Another unexpected connection appeared: a Budapest wine shop, an acquaintance with its owner and a link to Sberbank in Moscow. The outstanding loan was legally bought out for a third of its value. The burden eased. Then came an agreement to buy the property out of insolvency. It required a partner, patience and negotiation-and succeeded.

When he brought guests among hundreds of barrels, they could see what premium meant. It no longer needed explaining. The reality began generating the money that enabled the final purchase. In 2023, the winery returned to full ownership, and the business was divided into two operations: one range for larger volumes-whites, rosés and several reds-also sold through major retail chains, and another for small runs of premium reds sold through the winery, restaurant and online shop.

That brings us to the most provocative, most unmistakably Maul-like part: prices.

Maul openly describes the market as “catastrophic”, but premium wine has its audience. In Hungary, red wines priced between two and six thousand forints are stagnating, while those below fifteen hundred and above seven thousand are selling. Lator performs better at Auchan than cheaper reds. It sounds paradoxical until you realise that, when buying red wine, people increasingly want either something cheap for everyday drinking or something that feels worthwhile.

Then comes his ultimate wine: Zsolt. The price is 120,000 forints a bottle. This is a substantial release of a little over a thousand bottles, made only in selected years. The best the winery can offer, the most expensive barrels from France, three years of ageing and a design that shouts, “This is me.” And it has buyers. Even when restaurants charge more, private customers buy it as a birthday trophy, a luxury gift, a statement.

Maul maintains that this has helped other Villány winemakers dare to ask more. A region seeking a reputation must also have wines priced as rarities and status symbols.

– It doesn’t have to appeal to everyone, but it has to exist. You need to reach people who drink wine to affirm an attitude, who are willing to pay thirty times more for a bottle with character. There is nothing wrong with that.

Perhaps that is the most precise description of a fenegyerek in wine: he fears mediocrity more than being disliked.

Behind it all stands the family, with the full dynamics of Maul’s life. A divorce in 2020, a new partner, Krisztina, with whom he has lived for five years. She runs five guest houses with fifty beds, a business bursting at the seams on weekends. His sons are coming into the picture. The elder is not yet involved, but the younger, Dávid, joins and becomes central to a new turn: they open an exclusive wine bar on the main street, the unmistakable pincesor. As in Germany years earlier, the same pattern repeats: when Maul is there in person, his guests’ eyes light up. The owner brings the wine. The owner carries the plate. Premium is lived.

That is why Zsolt Maul’s story extends beyond a winery. It is the story of a man who twice fell all the way to the bottom, twice returned, and each time came back with an even firmer conviction:

– Let there be premium wine-and let it be expensive.

And Villány? In this story, Villány is the “Bordeaux of the East” because it has people who dare to think and work as though they belong to a world-class wine region.

Maul is one of them. Fenegyerek, lator, phoenix.

And it seems that fate really does like to work for him, sometimes, with an elevated blood alcohol level.