Stéphanie Berecz

The Path

The route from Bordeaux to Tokaj is not a decorative one; it reads as a movement from technical schooling into cellar work under scale, then into authorship. Her role at a large domaine owned by a French insurance company lasted until 2002, and since 2002 she has been the founder, winemaker, and owner of Kikelet Pince. That shift from employee to owner changed the shape of the work: a smaller frame, a narrower field, and more direct responsibility for what the wines say.

The Work Today

Within Tokaj, the estate’s line is precise rather than broad. Berecz has made Hárslevelű a central subject, keeping the variety legible instead of folding it into a generalized regional voice. The work rests on that kind of discipline: hold the grape close, keep the cellar decisions clear, and let the wine register as a distinct point of view. The single-vineyard bottling gives that approach a fixed site and a named expression. Váti-dűlő Hárslevelű 2016 is not treated as an abstraction, but as a specific wine where vineyard and grape carry the argument. The range also includes aszu 6 puttonyos, which extends the estate’s voice without changing its center of gravity.

Signature

Stéphanie's signature wines include Váti-dűlő Hárslevelű 2016, aszu 6 puttonyos, and Late Harvest. Together they show a compact portfolio, with the emphasis on Tarcal and on the differences that emerge when the work stays specific in vineyard naming and style.

In Their Words “Nobody ever tried to produce a 100% Tarcal wine in the modern style, and we had no idea what it could give.”

Acclaim

The record of achievement is straightforward: Bordeaux training, a winemaking post at a large domaine owned by a French insurance company until 2002, then a move into Tokaj in the 1990s and a continued body of work at Kikelet Pince since 2002. The value of that arc is in how it narrows the focus. The wines do not depend on rhetoric; they are built from vineyard, grape, and the accumulated pressure of years spent refining the same questions. Recognition follows from the specificity of the bottles. Berecz’s reputation is carried by named vineyard expression and by styles that keep the work readable in the glass, rather than by broad claims. That is where the practice becomes legible: in the precision of what is named, and in the consistency of what is left unsaid.