CultiVini, Budapest

This cool wine shop/bar/gallery kept us coming back for more everyday durnig our stay in Budapest, with great Hungarian wines and an interesting concept.


CultiVini is a wine shop/bar/gallery in central Budapest, just steps away from busy Vaci Utca, the main shopping street, a modern environment with a nice tasting space.

 We loved the concept of the tasting card: you load it (minimum 3000 HUF - refundable if you don't use it all - but frankly, how can you not use it all?!), get a glass and then you use it in the dispenser machines that are filled with the best selection of  50+ Hungarian wines. The machines have 3 different measures that go from just a sip to a glass, depending on how many wines you want to taste, your budget and your drinking limits, you pick what's best for you.

 Since we are not real Hungarian wines connoisseurs, we appreciated a lot the help from their tablet and their custom app, where you can read about all the wines they have for tasting or for sale, check the price and find other similar wines from the different wine regions in Hungary, a great help while discovering Hungarian wines.

 So, you pick the wine you want to taste, get the tablet and find it, read about it, taste it and then move to the next one, and if you want to buy it, just ask the staff to get it for you, as great and comfortable as that!

 We came and tasted several wines on this 3-day visit to Budapest, the first day was dedicated to the white wines, second to the reds third to the ones we wanted to buy and the Tokaji.

From the whites I enjoyed the taste of the fun-labeled Riesling Cappuccino Oil from Suede owned Villa Sandahl and Szent Tamas' Percze Furmint.

As for the red wines, I enjoyed very much the Kuria Cabernet Franc from Malatinszky (very pricy, though) and the Heimann Kadarka.

The Tokajis are the real stars of the Hungarian wine panorama, our palates became pleasantly numb because of the sweetness of the delicate and flavorful Royal Tokaji Essencia 2003, it was great to taste it without having to buy the bottle (at 82.900 HUF!)

Special thanks to Judit, the super-nice member of the staff who talked to us, gave us good suggestions and told us interesting stories about the wines.
Prices of wines vary depending of the quality, and while most of them are not really cheap, if you consider that they must be best quality in Hungary and that there's a great variety of labels, then it's definitely a nice place to visit if you want to know more about Hungarian wines and perhaps bring home a bottle or two.

CultiVini Wine Gallery
Párizsi u. 4 (Between Váci utca & Petőfi Sándor utca)
Budapest 1052
info@cultivini.com
Tel. +36 1 235 0230 (Reception) +36 1 235 0229 (Office)
http://www.cultivini.com/
Opening hours:
Mon - Wed: 11.00 - 19.00, Thu: 11.00 - 21.00, Fri - Sat: 10.00 - 21.00, Sun: 11.00 - 19.00