What's behind our bottles ?

1.   Strategy

2.   Business

3.   Our image

4.   Market

5.   Target groups

6.   Wine Style

7.   Competency

8.   Vineyard

9.   Varieties

10. Cultivation

11. Wine making

12. Technology

13. Quality

Villa Sandahl is a new player in a traditional wine region, dating from thousands of years back. Needless to say it is utterly important to refine all accumulated values from the specific terroir and the past, but it is equally important to bring in new approaches where significant progress have been made since the old times.

The behaviour among wine consuming people is under constant evolution and has changed drastically in the latest decades. It is necessary to keep up with offering a product that is recognised for being modern and competitive.

To keep energized and passionate, it is also vital to produce a wine that we ourselves adore to taste.

Villa Sandahl are resolutely and dedicatedly taking on the competition in the top quality segment of dry white wine, and have the vision to produce Hungary's best dry Rhine Riesling wine.

It is  a fact in most parts of the world, that cheap and low quality wines have lesser and lesser demand. Wine is more and more seen to fill a life style and being a source of adventures, instead of the cheap way of getting drunk. Consequently low quality wines are exposed for a hard price press and risk to get unprofitable.

On the other hand and quite contrary, high quality wine have a lot better profit margin. This has a lot of reasons, and amongst other can be mentioned the scarceness of ultimate vineyards, the difficulties to find necessary competency, and the timeless problem to get quality into all parts of the wine operation.

High quality wines have good margins but will always be a very limited volume market. The preferred business situation for Villa Sandahl is to produce relatively small amounts of very high quality wines.

The company structure being established consists of one Hungarian company, called Villa Sandahl Kft, to cultivate vineyards, and another Swedish company, called Sandahl International AB, to own the Hungarian company and marketing the wine in the wide world.

The total market for wine handles enormous volumes. As said, Villa Sandahl will not produce big volumes in the cheap market segments, so supermarkets chains and general grocery shops are hardly targets for selling our wine.

Even with Villa Sandahl's modest volume production (couple of ten thousands bottles), there are not an enough big market for this price segment within Sweden, or even not within Scandinavia. Many countries in Europe must be targeted, or we have to consider to export some parts to America or Asia.

Since high quality wines are a relatively small market segment, the retailers are often also small and specialized. Villa Sandahl must handles theses retailers selectively one by one, or get wine brokers to distribute to these retailers.

A very good way to bypass all middlemen between the producer and consumer, is to offer the wine via internet shops and ship directly to private persons. This is currently made in Sweden with very good result.

Top restaurants are a potentially very good market for Villa Sandahl wines. The prices are not the dominating item, provided the wine live up to their prestige level and go well to food, as Villa Sandahl does.

The matter of wine style to produce is always a topic being discussed. The preferences from wine customers are relatively diverse. To know what wine style to produce, it is important to map the target groups.

1) Villa Sandahl first mission is to satisfy vine loving "ordinary people", looking for such wines that give something extra. Our wine are intended to be enjoyed with home cocking, or being an adventure in itself.

2) Wine quality is not very transparent and easy analysed by people in general, resulting in a shortage of reliable advices and guidance. This is provided by wine critics who thereby get very influential, thus become the second important target for Villa Sandahl.

3) Sommeliers at restaurants are the third target for Villa Sandahl. Their preferences are between the experienced ordinary consumers and wine critics. Since sommeliers are working close to their customers, their attitudes are somewhere between ordinary people and wine critics.

Easier to flatter, and bother not about correctness like:

"Pour what wine you have"
"Some sweet body preferred"
"Acidity may not be disturbing"
"Typicality not a big matter"
 

A bit "classic" conservative with correct rules like:

"Wine to food must be dry"
"Noticeable sugar undesired"
"Acidity must be noticeable"
"Wines must be region typical"
 

As can be seen above, we have to sometimes consider making different types of wine for our targets, or try to make compromises that these targets are ready to accept.

Most wine loving "ordinary people" prefer a boost of the body with some sugar (5 - 7 g/l). This is a bit over the detectable level at a tastings but below the EU definition of dry wine. However, for wine critics this might be (a couple of grams) too high. Consequently, Villa Sandahl ferment the Silver Line to higher residual sugar to satisfy wine loving "ordinary people", and ferment the Golden Line with less sugar to catch the critics and more "classic" wine loving "ordinary people".

Furthermore, we don't want that our wines should be referred to as "sour" or "acid". This means that the acidity level should be moderate (5 - 7 g/l, or about the same amount as for sugar) and that the acidity should be round and ripe. This is mainly achieved by late grape harvesting.

On the other hand, acidity brings elegance and freshness. Our "soft acidity" approach must consequently be balanced by a "fresh acidity" contrast. This is obtained by using the "mineral acidity" Riesling variety as our optimal variety choice, and to avoid  malolactic fermentation (which anyway doesn't go well with Riesling)

Volatile acidity in excess levels can be regarded as a flaw in a wine. However, in a moderate level (0.5 - 0.7 g/l), volatile acidity release the smell and brings complexity to our wines.

Late grape harvest cause the sugar to rise, which means that the alcohol level can get high (above 13 %). This is not a big problem if the wine is rich, so that the alcohol can be hidden among a lot of other supplying components. Despite this, we must avoid a too high alcohol levels, since health care institutions see high alcohol levels as unfashionable.

Given the statements above, we want to be referred as:

• Use valuable traditions but be unafraid of innovations

• Small producer of exceptional wine quality

• Sensitive to market demand and consumers

Our models from other business professions are such companies as Toyota, Ikea and Google. They are interpreted as reliable, serious, persistent, long term, inventive, market
oriented and quality driven.

It is important to show these characteristics in everything concrete we do. For example:

• Producing top quality wine to reasonable prices for satisfied customers.

• Building a stylish promotion house, where we can receive preferred retailers and brokers.

• Changing and improving the vineyard binding to show a model of farming.

• To be informative and honest about our operation, like this page on our web site.

One of the most important areas for to succeed with a quality operation, is to find the right people, and to do without the others. The Villa Sandahl team is so far:

Thord Sandahl from Värnamo in Sweden, has a genuine experience of business and leadership, being president of the large size Swedish road carrier family corporation Sandahlsbolagen AB.

 

Christer Sandahl from Lund in Sweden, has a long experience of official wine judgements in the Swedish wine association Munskänkarna, and has collected and tasted rare wines from all over the world for over 25 years.
 

The owners are in favour to get support from dedicated specialists like:

Fabien Stirn from Sigolsheim in Alsace. He is a talented wine maker of the fifth generation, producing superb Alsace grand cru wines. He is the invaluable oenological consultant for us.

Stefan Cezar from Hungary, and have also lived in Sweden for long. He is the inimitable entrepreneur  managing the Cezar Winery in Nagyrada. This company ferment and bottle our wines.
 

Tibor Toth from Hungary. He is cultivating the Villa Sandahl vineyards and taking care of our real estates.

All of Hungary is scattered with traditional wine areas, well known by Hungarians, but often rather unknown for the rest of the world. Badacsony is one of the most famous and situated in the west part of Hungary, on the northern shore of lake Balaton.

During the 18.–19. centuries, the Badacsony wine region was, together with Tokaj, the most well reputed wine area in Hungary and even in the rest of Europe. Sadly this area has declined in quality since then, with an accelerated speed during the communist era.

The Badacsony Hill has excellent volcanic eroded basalt soil and steep slopes down to the Balaton Lake with perfect sun exposure.

This area has always had an enormous potential, but for the moment this is not optimally utilized. Villa Sandahl is dedicated to once again release this potential, when to intend to produce the best dry white wines of Hungary.

We call our vineyard "Zsuzsannas vineyard", after the former owner. It is one of the steepest slopes of the Badacsony Hill. The vineyard is 3.4 hectares, has a gradient of about 1:5, and is straight south-facing. We regard this vineyard to have the same potential as many famous vineyards in Alsace and Wachau.

Zsuzsanna Vineyard is planted with 25 years old vines of Rhine Riesling and Pinot Gris, with some additional Zeus.

Villa Sandahl have recognised that the Zsuzsanna vineyard is one of the hottest and driest microclimate of then Badacsony hill. Thus our vineyard seem to be a location favourable for both white and red varieties, either sun resistant white varieties or easy ripening red varieties.

The late ripening Rhine Riesling is the perfect mach for the hot microclimate, and is also worldwide highly regarded as a quality variety. Since it is already the major variety in the vineyard, Villa Sandahl will proceed with this variety as the major target. We consider an improvement program to engraft the other varieties (Zeus and maybe Pinot Gris) into Rhine Riesling.

When to producing a top quality wine, it is crucial to have control in the vineyard and limit the harvest yield. Fortunately, there has never been any overproduction in the Zsuzsanna vineyard since the current vines were planted, so there is no big need for any challenging changes in this matter.

Currently the standard for Villa Sandahl is to take out 5 ton per hectare, corresponding to about 35 hectolitre wine per hectare. This is a very modest yield, which maybe considered to be heighten a bit without scarifying wine quality.

Harvest is a substantial risky moment and must be supervised down to details. Grape clusters must be cut off gently, carefully placed in small collecting boxes, which may not be over filled. A grape that get even the smallest rip, starts to oxidise, which erodes the wine quality. The transport to Nagyrada is an additional risk for crushing more grapes and expose them to oxygen from the wind blowing through the load.

One of the most important moment in white wine making, is the grape pressing procedure. We press whole clusters (without destemming) gently and slowly for several hours.

During the ongoing pressing, Villa Sandahl applies the method to separate the must in several fractions of different qualities. After pressing is finished, a first judgment can be made if to mix any of the fractions or to ferment all of them separately.

The fermentation is done very slowly in a reductive environment, in months rather than weeks. This enriches the wine considerably as well as the required low temperature keep freshness and bring elegance to the wine. There is seldom a need for malolactic fermentation.

To control the fermentation speed, temperature must be continuously watched. All our wine being under fermentation is measured and analysed every day.

After fermenting, another judgment is made which tanks is up to standard for Golden Line and what must be declassified to Silver Line. Qualities below Silver Line is not sold under the Villa Sandahl label.

Bottling is done in sterile environment into stylish bottles, and without compromising cork quality.

A quality wine is the result from impeccable treatment by adequate technology.

In the vineyard our Carrera TRX 9400 AC tractor with low gravitation centre and wide balloon tyres is the key enabler. To our tractor we connected sprayer, crass cutter and sprout cutters.

The grape press is essential for making white wine. We use an Bucher-Vaslin XPF 80  It is possible to program the press with the pressure schema, to get a reliable pressing process.

Some producers use large casks to be traditional and/or enable some micro oxidation. Villa Sandahl avoid wood, because we fear to strip down the elegance and to accelerate the maturation of the bottled wine. We use only stainless steel tanks, many of them with movable top, because our fractions differ in volume for every vintage.

To be able to measure in an efficient and accurate way in a stressing reality, Villa Sandahl acquired an analysing instrument named "Oenofoss" from a Danish company. From a wine sample drop this machine deliver the nine most common measurements with enough accuracy within a half minute.

To ferment and bottle our wines, Villa Sandahl has a close and long term cooperation with the Cezar Winery just outside Nagyrada in the Kis-Balaton Area. This vinery is establishing a top modern winemaking production site and will produce around 1 million bottles in a couple of years to come. Most of their wines are red from their own vineyard grapes.

Quality control is one of the most crucial aspects when to produce great wines. The overall difficulty is, that quality can not be separated out as a stand alone activity performed by a certain person or group. Quality must instead be understood and applied in every part of the operation by everybody working for Villa Sandahl.

First of all, the value chain of our operation is captured and understood. This is a map of every activity from the very first planning of the vineyard, all the way through green work, harvesting, pressing, fermentation, and up to the wine is in the bottle and consumed by a satisfied customer. Se our quality presentation that explains this more in detail.

After capturing the value chain, all spots in the chain  influencing our wine quality, is identified. After that, a prioritized plan is established, describing which spots having which quality weaknesses and in what prioritized order to improve them.

Finally and most difficult, the decided quality improvements have been implemented and realized. The improvement have sometimes been to acquire better equipment, sometimes to change supplier etc, but most often have been to deal with changing the way people think and work. This is often considered to be a painful transition, but when Villa Sandahl has has decided what must be done, there is commitment and patience until the implementation has proven to be in place.

The above quality work is not a one-time-activity, but must be continually repeated as a "continuous learning and improvement" concept. To not improve and learn, is in best case to stay still, but if competitors are moving forward, then we are moving backward relatively to them.

Villa Sandahl Kft
8261 Badacsony
Római út 203/1
Hungary

Sandahl International AB
Box 2045
331 02 Värnamo
Sweden