Thummerer Winery

Since 2004 in the same cellar

Since 2004, the chief winemaking work has stayed in the same hands. József Lamport, Winemaker at Thummerer Winery in Noszvaj, keeps that continuity inside an estate built at a scale that asks for repetition, memory, and a steady palate. His remit at the winery is not a guest appearance or a seasonal consultation; it is the long station, held through harvest after harvest, with the house style formed by decisions made before the fruit reaches the press and after the wine has entered the cellar.

Lamport’s public profile is tied most closely to Egri Csillag, the wine that carries his name most clearly at Thummerer. The award Winemaker of the Year in Hungary (2025) sits against that longer tenure, not apart from it. Here, recognition follows the discipline of remaining with one estate and one region long enough for small corrections to become part of the method. Thummerer works in the Eger appellation, with Noszvaj lying 12 km from Eger, and Lamport’s role gives the place a named hand at the center of that program.

Estate fruit at a large scale

The winery works from 100 hectares of owned vineyards and produces approximately 500,000 bottles annually, a scale that makes estate familiarity more than a romantic idea. The fruit comes into a program that includes Kékfrankos, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Syrah, Kadarka, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Blauburger, and Sauvignon Blanc, with still red, still white, and sparkling wines in the house’s range. The stated philosophy is sustainable, and at this size that word has practical implications: vineyard decisions must hold across blocks, varieties, and cellar space, not only across a single row or a small parcel.

The most specific craft fact belongs underground. Thummerer’s cellar system covers 4,200 square meters, hand-carved into volcanic tuff more than a century ago. The stone maintains a constant temperature for fermentation and aging, letting the cellar do part of the work without spectacle. Volcanic tuff is not decoration here. It is wall, climate, vessel-adjacent architecture, and a material condition that shapes how wine moves through time before it leaves the house.

Cool stone and noble mold

The cellar has the quiet of a working underground room, with noble mold on the walls and cool volcanic stone around the tanks and aging spaces. Conversation stays low because the place asks for it. In that atmosphere, the craft reads through surfaces: the carved tuff, the depth of the rooms, the way temperature feels held rather than imposed. Above ground, the estate spreads across vineyard land in Noszvaj; below ground, the cellar gathers the program into a slower register.

Thummerer’s hospitality includes wine tasting, food pairing, and group tours, but the room’s real subject is the cellar itself. The tasting room sits in the orbit of that underground system, so the glass points back toward the mountain rather than away from it. Egri Csillag carries Lamport’s hand here.