Villa Sandahl Kft

Villa Sandahl Kft was started in 2004 by two Swedish brothers Sandahl Thord, Sandahl Christer and Christer's wife Sandahl Gunnel. They had for long planned to start dealing with wine, and this was selected as their project. Thord is the executive director of a Swedish transportation family company with around 200 trailers and 400 employees. Christer and Gunnel are computer and quality engineers, and have for more than 25 years been involved in the Swedish wine association Munskänkarna, and for the 10 recent years been members of Munskänkarnas official tasting panel for writing tasting judgments in their member journal, monthly spread to 20 000 members in Sweden. Villa Sandahl is since 2004 the exclusive users of 11 ha vineyards, next above Pansio Óbester in Badacsony. This vineyards have been heavily renovated and are slowly getting in splendid condition. The main variety is Rhine Riesling from 30 years old vines, which give perfect ripe grapes at late harvest just before the winter sets in. The Alsace top producer and oenology Fabien Stirn from Sigolsheim, is contracted and together with him, an Alsace grand cru vinification has been developed for Villa Sandahl. This gives the perfect match between the great Badacsony grape material and the state of the art French winemaking. From pressing there are three quality fractions being derived, which are fermented separate for later assemblage, to become a top quality wine from each vineyards and a second wine blend from all varieties and vineyards. Fractions not up to very high standard are sold off. The fermentation is done for three month with very slow yeast at about 11 degree Celsius. Villa Sandahl believes in a modest yield of circa 5000 kg per hectare , which makes around 30 000 bottles per year. Since all vineyards are not fully renovated yet, the production is currently only a third of this. The wine style of choice is to make a late harvest from ripe fruit, in order to obtain subtle elegance combined with good body with barely noticeable sweetness from residual sugar. Villa Sandahl's has from the vintage 2006 produced two Rhine Riesling wines, one high class premium wine called Golden Line and one second wine called Silver Line. The 2008 wines have been awarded medals from prestigious wine competitions, one bronze and one commended medal from Decanter and one silver medal from Riesling du Monde. Moreover, our 2010 The Stamp has received gold medals from all major wine competitions, such as Decanter, Riesling du Monde and Bormustra. Villa Sandahl is among the first Hungarian producers to receive these medals for Rhine Rieslings , and certainly the first to get 3 gold awards for the same wine. Villa Sandahl has no own vinery but has recently set up a long term contract and improvement program with Bazaltbor. This vinery is close to Villa Sandahl vineyards, and has everything a winemaker can wish. Bacó Ambrus is the serious and delicately wine maker, who has taking the 2010 vintage of Villa Sandahl to unprecedented quality levels. The 2011 have not yet been part of any wine competition, but are even better than the 2010. From the short and thrilling history, to the 2012 summer Villa Sandahl will have portfolio of 9 wines for sale, ranging from 2006 to 2011, including Rhine Riesling, Pinot Gris and Olasz Rizling. Villa Sandahl is a passion quality wine producer, and dedicated to become one of the best dry white wine producers in the world. The Villa Sandahl vision is, together with other leading producers of Badacsony, to re-establish the Badacsony international reputation to what it once was.