The Temerin Garden Lovers’ Circle
Narodnog Fronta St.
(Gardener’s Lodge), 21235 Temerin
Serbia
Wine has always been highly appreciated in Temerin. In our grandfathers’ days there used to be no yard where there would not be one or two square metres of grapevine. But the trellises of the gangway were also covered by the same plant, in the shadow of which it was a great pleasure to drink a glass of red wine. The „backyard viticulture” was censored by the division of the spacy peasent yards and by opening up new streets. It has been possible to change this situation the present day, though. The wine lovers, who formed the Temerin Garden Lovers’ Circle, managed to stop this fall in the popularity of viticulture in the municipailty and even further away. It all began with the amateur viticulturists gathering at private homes at the beginning of the 90s on Tuesday evenings. They sampled and judged the wines of each other. But they soon outgrew the private home environment. Their gatherings resulted in a series of lectures with the participation of the most renowned domestic and Hungarian wine experts, and the newspapers wrote more and more frequently about them. Meanwhile, the circle of the wine samplers and grapevine planters broadened more and more, and wine had regained its old place on the family tables. Our viticulturists went to prestigious wine contest nearby and abroad, and they came back with a lot of medals from these places, having proved thus that their effort was not without any avail, and that this fat soil in South Bačka was not good only for corn and sugar beet, but also for grapevine. Since 1998 the Circle organizes each year the now international Vincent’s Day wine contest and wine sampling, which is traditionally preceded by the Martin Day’s sampling of the new wine, as a full rehearsal. Today our viticulturists even make the service wine for the Roman Catholic parish, which is being blessed together with all the other new wines on John’s Day by the Rev. Father. The Circle has already got three certificated wine judges, since 2001, when Dr László Dujmovics, Oszkár Paska and László Horváth successfully passed their exams in Budapest. The members of the Circle are now assured that they have managed to make up for the fallback of the wine culture that ensued after WWII.