The Russians may be dubious about Hungarian fruit and vegetables, but they seem to think Hungarian wine is just fine. According to the appropriately named website orientpress.hu, entries from Badacsony's Varga Pincészet won top awards in two of the ten wine categories at the International Specialized Exhibition of Spirits, Wines, Soft Drinks and Equipment - a.k.a. Interdrink 2006 - held earlier this month in Moscow.

The two gold-takers from Varga were the 2005 Badacsonyi Szürkebarát and the 2005 late- harvest Badacsonyi Olaszrizling. (If you are Cyrillic-impaired, the certificate for the Olaszrizling is pictured above.)

"We're very happy about the success of our wines," said winemaker Péter Varga. "In such a large-scale competition, getting into the top ten is a huge result... All major wine merchants were present at the event, and we're expecting a significant increase in our exports. Last year we sold close to 500,000 bottles of wine on the Russian market. This year we are already over 1.2 million bottles."

While this is a pretty big piece of business, it is just more than 10% of Varga's annual sales of around 10 million bottles (of both wine and champagne), roughly 30% of which ends up abroad. At the end of the 1990s, the winery began a large-scale planting of vines, and today owns 200 acres of vines, primarily around Lake Balaton.