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About Us
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What's behind our bottles ? |
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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 |
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Strategy |
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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. |
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Business |
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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. |
| Market |
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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. |
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Target groups |
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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. |
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Wine consumers:
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"
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Wine critics:
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"
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Wine style |
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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. |
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Our image |
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Given the
statements above, we want to be referred as:
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Use valuable traditions but
be unafraid of innovations
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Small producer of exceptional
wine quality
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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:
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Producing top quality wine to
reasonable prices for satisfied customers.
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Building a stylish promotion
house, where we can receive preferred retailers and brokers.
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Changing and improving the
vineyard binding to show a model of farming.
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To be informative and honest
about our operation, like this page on our
web site.
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Competency |
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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. |
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Our vineyard |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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Varieties |
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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. |
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Cultivation |
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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. |
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Wine making |
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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. |
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Technology |
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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. |
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Quality |
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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. |
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Villa Sandahl Kft
8261 Badacsony
Római út 203/1
Hungary |
Sandahl International AB
Box 2045
331 02 Värnamo
Sweden |
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