The competition, commonly known as ‘Winemaker of the Year’ and regarded as the Kossuth Prize of the Hungarian wine industry, was won by a winemaker from Eger.

The official name of the award is „Winemaker of the Year in Hungary”, which was presented for the 35th time by the Hungarian Wine Academy.

The title is not a recognition of the exceptional quality of a single wine, but is awarded in recognition of a wine producer’s outstanding performance over several years, the consistently high quality of their wines, and their success both at home and abroad.

This is, therefore, the most prestigious domestic award that Hungarian winemakers can win.

In this year’s awards József Lamport, the Thummerer Cellar was awarded to the head winemaker.

This is not the first time this year that the winemaker has been shortlisted among the Hungarian Wine Academy’s top five winemaker nominees; he was ultimately named the winner. 

József Lamport told *Magyar Nemzet* that he considers winning the award in 2025 to be the greatest honour of his life. He recalled how, back in 1992, he and his friend Gergely Báthory – whose father had won the award that year – used to look up to Ákos Kamocsay or even Vilmos Thummerer, at whose winery he had started working 21 years earlier.

‘Awards are good recognition and feel great, but the real motivation is to do better with every vintage,’ said József Lamport. As he put it: ‘I’ve been through twenty-five harvests; my mother saw through fifty – that’s the real motivation.’. 

This year’s „Kossuth Prize” winner in the wine-making sector naturally tried to dodge the question of which of his own wines was his favourite. He replied: ‘It’s always the one I’m currently working on – the wines from the Thummerer Winery.’. 

In the end, we managed to get him to reveal: Thummerer Csillag Superior 2024, Thummerer Bikavér Grand Superior Nagy-Eged 2021, Thummerer Egri Syrah Superior Selection 2021

The winning wine producer is entitled to use the title indefinitely; however, once one year has elapsed since the award, they may only use it alongside the year in which it was awarded. Thanks to an initiative launched last year by Gundel Restaurant – which provides the venue for the awards ceremony – and the Hungarian Wine Academy, the restaurant’s private dining room is named each year after the current holder of the ‘Winemaker of the Year’ title.

So, from today, it will be called the Lamport Room for a year.