As of sometime early this afternoon, the 16th Budapest International Wine and Champagne Festival - this year's biggest gathering in Hungary of winemakers, drinkers and hangers-on - was half-over. But we can't yet tell you how it's going, because the weather in the Hungarian capital has been so spectacularly cold and wet for the last week that we couldn't gin up the courage to go. Which is more than a bit ironic, as the big story of the festival is likely to be the extreme heat endured by most Hungarian winemakers over much of the 2007 growing season.

While the festival normally serves as a starting point for the annual szüret, numerous winemakers across Hungary were forced to harvest their grapes before the close of August, thanks to the heat that blanketed Hungary, like much of Europe, since the spring.

Illustrating the situation was the actual bottling of completed wines during the last weekend of the month in the Csabagyöngye region in the Badacsony Hills, near Lake Balaton, which came so early that local vintners said it might qualify for a "Guinness" record. At the same time, the harvest started in both Eger and Tokaj, two or three weeks earlier than usual. In Szekszárd, the szüret started on August 13. Throughout most of the country, a small harvest of good grapes is expected, with winemakers mostly concerned about a lack of acid caused by the sweltering heat. But as in most extreme weather situations, the situation is likely to be different everywhere, and anyone who hadn't started picking before this weeks' deluge started is likely to be in trouble. Either way, several winemakers with booths at the festival are expected to bring along tastes of the unusual '07 vintage.

The most popular event during the wine and champagne festival - the so-called "Wine Exhibition and Fair" - takes place in the courtyards and terraces surrounding Buda's Royal Palace, and offers a very impressive array of both domestic and foreign exhibitors. (This year's featured "guest" country is South Africa.) There are lots of wine-related programs, including a competition to determine the "Festival Wine" that guests can be judges in, and big servings of music, folk dancing, and Hungarian food

It should also be said that, with 15 years' of festivals under their belts, the organizers have come close to mastering the inevitably messy logistic of running a giant carnival dedicated to alcoholic beverages. If only they could get similar control of the weather, which is current forecast to remain wet and cold until the last glass is topped off, sometime before midnight on Sunday.