ISHS Acta Horticulturae 473: International Symposium on the Importance of Varieties and Clones in the production of Quality Wine
ZENIT, ONE OF THE MOST SUCCESSFUL VARIETIES OF THE HUNGARIAN WINE-GRAPE BREEDING |
| Authors: | I. Varga, L. Gál, S. Misik |
| Keywords: | training system, frost resistance, wine quality |
| Abstract:
In the 1960's a considerable concentration of territories took place in the large-scale vine production in Hungary and the majority of the cultivated wine grape varieties was traditionally late maturing. Nearly 35% of the total manual work in wine grape production is comprised by harvesting (Kaiser, 1975). At this time, big farms required a rather large amount of manual work. Processing the big crop was an additional problem, for there was no sufficient processing capacity. As a result of all this, certain varieties could not be optimally harvested. Due to extreme years and difference in production areas of Hungarian wine-regions lying near the northern boarder of vine production, the choice of the variety is extremely important (Csepregi - Zilai, 1988). In the majority of the production areas and in the majority of years early and medium early varieties provide an acceptable quality. The quality of late maturing varieties, however, decisively depends on the year. Because of the above mentioned factors it became necessary to introduce those early foreign varieties that had been of no importance in the Hungarian vine production before and to set as an objective for breeding early maturing in vine improvement. It is this breeding work that resulted in creating the wine grape variety Zenit which is one of the outstanding results of the Hungarian wine grape improvements (Csepregi - Zilai, 1988). Zenit variety was produced by Dr Ferenc Király in Pécs in 1951 by cross-breeding of Ezerjó and Bouvier. The production value of this variety was examined by Ervin Kiss in Badacsony and Gyula Gábor in Eger. The variety was submitted for state qualification by the Eger Station of the Research Institute for Viticulture and Enology. In 1976 Zenit was preliminarily recognised and later on, in 1980 it got a state recognition. In the Eger wine-district where the above mentioned variety has currently been planted on 80 ha of vineyards, the interest towards this variety has been constantly growing. This is why we carry on studying its production and enological values at the Research Station in Eger. In what follows, an account is given of some of the results. | |
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