"Balatonfüred and the area around it isn't just famous fro its wines, but also because of its relationship with the arts", Minister of State for Rural Development Zsolt V. Németh said on Saturday at the opening of the Balatonfüred Wine Weeks festival. Over one-hundred-and-fifty thousand people are expected to visit the event.

Quoting Hungarian writer and philosopher Béla Hamvas, the Minister of State said: "drinking wine may not have a muse, but good wine can only be drunk properly by those who read poetry, listen to music and find beauty in art".

It would not be right to place one of Hungary's wine regions before the others, but the country has no other wine region or city like Balatonfüred, which has maintained such a centuries old relationship with the muses and the arts, he stressed.

Mayor of Balatonfüred István Bóka called the Balatonfüred Wine Weeks and popular and loveable event. The city and its wine-makers expect over one-hundred-and-fifty thousand visitors during the three-week festival. Guests can choose between a huge array of wines at stalls all along Tagore Promenade, with cultural programs in the evening. According to the Mayor, the goal of Hungary's most popular viniculture and wine-related festival is to focus attention on the region's wines, cultured wine drinking and on the city's own wine, Balatonfüred-Csopak Welschriesling.

Twenty-five wine producers, as well as small retailers, barbecue stalls and pálinka houses offer their produce at the three-week festival, which provides an opportunity to sample almost two hundred of the region's best wines produced from some thirty different varieties of grape.

(MTI, Press Office of the Ministry of Rural Development)