I've had enough of the silence. Have you?

I don't enjoy writing articles like this. I'm a winemaker. I tend my vines, I make wine, and I want what I do to mean something in the long run. I don't want to spend my life just getting by, constantly stressed about everything – because that's not what life is for. At least, I hope not. But lately it's been harder and harder to stay silent, because silence is itself a decision – and that decision has consequences.

Recently I had a long conversation with another Tokaj producer – in fact, lately there have been more and more of them. Someone I know, someone I respect, who has been working in this profession for years with love and care. He said what I've been thinking: a lot of things are simply not working, and we need to change them now – not eventually, but NOW. The problem isn't the quality of our wines or the natural potential of our wine region. The problem is how the region represents itself – or rather, how it doesn't.

What is the real problem?

Tokaj-Hegyalja is not a homogeneous community. There are large estates and small-plot growers here – there is state-funded wine marketing communication, and there are wineries that can barely afford a basic social media presence. That in itself isn't a problem – diversity is a strength. The problem starts when the system is structurally built to serve only one side.

This isn't opinion. This is data. And this data raises a very uncomfortable question: if the system serves so few, then whose wine region is this? Who represents that 83% who work small holdings, harvest by hand, and can't meet the volume requirements for export support?

The answer we're getting right now: nobody.

Wine Community Council of the Tokaj Wine region - what's missing

I'll be honest: I don't know exactly who sits on the local wine community council board. I know a name or two, but who represents my interests there or the interests of small producers like me – I genuinely cannot say. And that itself is a problem. I'll admit I'm partly responsible for that too.

This isn't about bad people sitting in those seats (at least, let's hope not all of them – no offence). It's about the fact that the current structure is not fit for purpose. There is no transparent decision-making. There is no space where the voice of small wineries carries any real weight. There is no collective communication that genuinely represents everyone – not just those large enough to fit into the export machinery.

This is what I hear, again and again – from winemakers who love this region but are tired. Tired of the insularity, the petty fiefdoms, the logic where everyone pushes their own interests and the community's affairs are always someone else's problem.

Not to tear each other apart – but to take stock

Let me be clear about what I don't want: another forum where everyone tells everyone else how badly they're doing it. No lecturing, no accusations, no pointless arguing. There's no need for that, and no value in it.

What is needed – and what hasn't happened yet – is a simple survey. What does each person need? What isn't working, and what would help? And simply: who actually wants to keep growing grapes? Because if someone doesn't, that's important information too – and something needs to be done with it. What happens to abandoned land? Will it find a new owner? Will something else be made of it?

These aren't rhetorical questions. These are the basic facts without which no strategy can be built. First we need to understand the actual situation. Then we can start moving in some direction – in communication, in representation, or even just in getting a few people to actually hear each other.

The system can be changed from the inside. Not by criticising it from the outside, but by organising within it.

If we do nothing now...

I don't want to paint the worst-case scenario. But if this continues, this wine region won't have much of a future – and a lot else will go with it. Because there won't be any point in what we're doing.

The global wine market is moving in exactly the direction that favours us small producers: towards personal, authentic wines with a real sense of place and story. But we can only take advantage of that if we communicate. If we're visible. If we have a shared voice.

Tradition doesn't pass itself on automatically. It has to be fought for – together.

What I'm calling for

I can't do this alone. I don't want to. That's exactly the point: this isn't my cause, it's ours.

I believe we need a shared conversation – not an organisation, not a campaign, not another association. Just the willingness to sit down together, those of us who see the situation similarly, and start putting into words: where we are, what we need, and where we want to go. From that can come strategy, shared communication, and eventually some concrete form – but only if there's real substance and real will underneath it.

All it takes is for those who have had enough of the silence to stop being silent.

Because silence is a decision too. And I've already made mine.