Bálint László DipWSET, WSET CE is the longest-serving educator at Winelovers Wine College. In 2009, shortly after he earned his WSET Diploma in London, Mészáros Gabriella invited him to join the school’s team. Since then, he has introduced generations of students to the world of wine – consistently and systematically, yet in a way that is accessible and engaging.
He originally trained as an electrical engineer and still runs an electronics business today. His path into wine, in his own words, was completely accidental. In 1998, he visited what was then considered a new-wave restaurant with colleagues, where carefully selected wines were served alongside the food. A 1997 Gróf Degenfeld Muscat Lunel and a 1995 Thummerer Egri Bikavér made such a lasting impression on him that his path was set: “I thought, if this is what WINE is like, then I’m very interested!”
His curiosity was soon followed by a more structured approach to learning. He completed the wine courses available in Hungary at the time and then began the WSET Diploma programme in London, which he successfully completed in 2009.
For him, however, wine has never been purely a theoretical field. He previously managed a winery in Eger and produces wine from his own vineyard in Tokaj. He also works as a professional consultant to numerous wineries in Hungary and abroad. His work ranges from harvest decisions and the development of winemaking techniques to blending, style creation and the production of market-ready wines. He has a particular passion for blending, fine-tuning the structure and balance of wines, and the world of traditionally made sparkling wines. He regularly serves as a judge and takes on leading roles at wine competitions, and is the Chairman of the Jury at the Winelovers Wine Awards international wine competition.
His engineering background and winemaking experience complement each other in a unique way. “When we evaluate a wine during a tasting, we are essentially placing it within a multidimensional coordinate system. An objective, engineering mindset is a great help in this. As an educator, I build on this approach too: I want to show that in the world of wine, connections and processes follow a logical structure. Once we understand that system, wine becomes not only more enjoyable, but also much easier to understand.”