Etyek

Where it sits. Etyek is a village of a few thousand people in Fejér County, about thirty kilometres west of Budapest on the far side of the Buda hills. The country around it is loess: soft, deep, pale soil laid down by wind over the last ice ages, cut into low rolling ridges that catch a great deal of sun. Two industries have grown out of that geology, and they sit almost within sight of each other. On the slopes above the village, rows of whitewashed press houses are dug into the loess banks. Fifteen minutes' walk away, behind a security gate, stands one of the largest film studio complexes in Europe.

Wine first. Etyek gives its name to the Etyek-Buda wine district, one of the coolest in Hungary, and the local speciality has always been high-acid white wine rather than anything heavy. That character made the village indispensable to the Hungarian sparkling wine industry: for well over a century, base wine from these vineyards travelled the short distance to the cellars at Budafok to be turned into sparkling wine, and Etyek was known as a supplier long before it was known as a destination in its own right. The modern picture is more varied — Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Irsai Olivér and Királyleányka from a mix of small family producers and a few larger estates — but the underlying style is the same: brisk, low-alcohol, food-friendly whites. The Öreg-hegy, the old hill above the village, is the place to taste them, in a row of cellar doorways cut straight into the loess where the temperature holds steady all year without any refrigeration.

Then the studios. Korda Studios opened at Etyek in 2007, named for Sir Alexander Korda, the Hungarian-born producer who built Denham Studios in England and effectively founded a British film industry. The complex was constructed on a budget of around ninety million euros and includes seven sound stages, among them a hall of just under six thousand square metres that was, when it opened, the largest purpose-built stage anywhere. Alongside the stages are permanent outdoor backlots — a medieval and Renaissance European town, and a stretch of American city street — that can be redressed between productions. Guillermo del Toro's Hellboy II: The Golden Army was the first film shot here; since then the site has hosted three seasons of The Borgias, work on The Martian, Gemini Man and sequences for Dune, among a long list of series and features. The nickname that stuck locally is Etyekwood.

Why Hungary, and why here. The concentration of production around Budapest rests on a generous tax rebate, deep crews trained across decades at Mafilm and its successors, and a landscape within an hour's drive that can pass for most of Europe. Etyek's specific advantage is space: flat, cheap, buildable land close enough to the capital for cast and crew to commute, but far enough out that a backlot town can stand for years without anyone objecting. The Witcher worked across this whole ecosystem for its first season, using Budapest stages, the Skanzen open-air museum at Szentendre for Yennefer's village, the fortress at Komárom for Cintra's walls and the hills of Csákberény for its battles. Korda runs a visitor operation, Korda Filmpark, with guided tours of the backlots and a props and costume exhibition when production schedules allow.

What a day looks like. Most visitors combine the two halves: a morning studio tour, then an afternoon on the Öreg-hegy moving between cellar doors. Several producers keep regular tasting hours at weekends, and the village runs periodic open-cellar events when the whole hill is walkable with a glass. There is also a strong food scene by Hungarian village standards — bistros using produce from the surrounding farms, a bakery with a reputation that draws people out from Budapest, and the Etyek Piknik series of food and wine weekends through the warm months.

Getting there and timing. Etyek is a forty-minute drive from central Budapest on the M1, and buses run from Kelenföld, though the timetable is designed for commuters rather than day-trippers. Studio tours must be booked in advance and are cancelled at short notice when a production needs the space, so confirm before travelling. September and early October are the best weeks: the harvest is in, the cellars are busy, and the light on the loess ridges in the late afternoon is the reason so many location scouts have driven this road. Cellar interiors involve steps and uneven floors, so access varies considerably from one producer to the next.