Golden flavescence is one of the most severe phytoplasma diseases affecting grapevines. Its full scientific name is grapevine flavescence dorée phytoplasma, though it is commonly referred to as FD or simply as a phytoplasma – and it now poses the greatest challenge in decades to the entire wine-growing and winemaking sectors of Hungary and Slovakia.
In this article, we examine how the disease appeared in both countries. We show that in each case the alarm bells rang too late, and authorities failed to respond in time following basic epidemiological logic. The European Union provides clear examples of the regulatory protocols that must be activated, yet these were not implemented swiftly enough. The result: an explosive spread of the phytoplasma. And despite the existence of EU rules designed to curb its advance, these are not being properly enforced in either Hungary or Slovakia. Both countries lack the regulatory capacity that EU law requires.
Growers and winemakers in Hungary and Slovakia alike feel that official information and action arrived far too late. When it comes to monitoring, testing, inspections, compulsory grubbing-up and so forth, state capacity is limited – a constraint that further hampers effective control of the disease.
It’s already everywhere
“I can see that if we approach this task irresponsibly, in a few years we simply won’t have vines left,” warned János Frittmann, president of the National Council of Mountain Communities (HNT), at the end of October in Szekszárd (a historic wine region in southern Hungary), where grape-growers and winemakers from the region gathered for a forum on golden flavescence.
In the packed auditorium of the Szolnok Knowledge Centre, Frittmann outlined the current situation. Sharing the stage was Ákos Molnár – head of the HNT’s viticulture section – who has already lost his own vineyard to FD. His message reinforced the same point: the disease is now present everywhere in the country. It will not disappear. But with coordinated, collective action, its spread can be contained – and the industry can learn to live with it.
Misconceptions and public awareness
The professional forum in Szekszárd was just one of many held in October and November. Whether organised at national or local growers’ association level, each event combined factual briefings with efforts to dispel rumour and myth.
Among the confirmed facts was that the infection does not affect wine quality, but it does destroy vines; and that once the disease appears, it can infect 80–100% of a vineyard within a short time. It is also a matter of record that in Zala county – and now in the Kunság wine region as well – large vineyard blocks have had to be grubbed up. This fate may await every wine region. The entirety of Badacsony wine region is already under quarantine, and the Sopron, Neszmély, Etyek–Buda and Pécs regions are all heavily infected.
Officials also stated as fact that the detailed state-level regulations required to address the crisis are being prepared, and that the government will provide the financial framework needed for disease control.
As for rumours in need of debunking, several were addressed. It is not true, for example, that antibacterial agents are effective against the disease: FD is caused by a highly specific bacterial pathogen for which no treatment currently exists. Nor is it true that pruning shears or harvesters can transmit the infection, as the disease spreads via infected propagating material and through the annual emergence of the American grapevine leafhopper. And the notion that symptoms are easy to identify is another misconception: the signs closely resemble those of a dozen other grapevine diseases.
Spread
Golden flavescence, transmitted by the American grapevine leafhopper, represents the most serious plant-health challenge Hungary has faced in decades. For years, the phytoplasma responsible for this bacterial disease spread almost invisibly. By mid-December, just one of Hungary’s 22 wine regions – Bükk – had not been officially confirmed as infected; all the others had detected the pathogen.
The surge in cases this year provoked a systemic response: the government and the National Food Chain Safety Office (Nébih) enacted extraordinary measures, began formulating methodological guidance, and committed to providing the necessary tools and funding. Even so, the FD situation in Hungary remains grave.
The pest, which France has tried to contain since the 1950s and Italy for decades, was first detected near the Slovenian border, around cities Lenti and Letenye. Because the disease poses no risk to wine and its impact on the plant was initially considered modest, nothing was done after its first detection in 2006.
In the years that followed, the leafhopper spread through much of Transdanubia (Dunántúl) region and gradually across the country. With no reports of serious vineyard-level infection, the disease remained virtually invisible. That changed in August 2013, when the dangerous phytoplasma was identified near Lenti, close to the Slovenian–Hungarian border. Yet still no meaningful action was taken until the summer of 2025, when growers in Zala county began reporting catastrophic conditions. Backed by professional organisations, they sent urgent letters to the agriculture ministry and several members of the government. Only then did the alarm finally sound within the system, triggering a search for a coordinated, systemic response.
Detection
Regional assessments, carried out through intensive scouting up until late autumn when the grape leaves finally dropped, show that the most heavily phytoplasma-infected areas are the Zala region, the vineyards around Lake Balaton, and the Villány and Szekszárd wine regions.
In Zala, estimates suggest that more than 90% of vineyards are now at direct risk of infection. Around Lake Balaton the disease is so widespread and concentrated that full quarantines have been imposed in several areas. Villány, Szekszárd and Somló regions also showed symptoms early on. And in roughly half a dozen further regions – including Pannonhalma, Eger, Mátra and Tokaj – completed tests have already demonstrated, and Nébih has officially confirmed, the presence of the phytoplasma at least at one site. National Food Chain Safety Office (Nébih) publishes the most up-to-date, municipality-level, detailed infection list on its website.
In theory, wherever infection is confirmed, the regulatory protocol based on relevant EU legislation must be activated. Hungary, like Austria, Italy or Slovenia, is required to manage the issue according to these rules. The legal framework concerning so-called quarantine pests is set out in Hungary’s “Decree 7/2001 (I.17.) on the detailed rules for the implementation of plant health tasks” – a document of more than 300 pages.
Under this framework, the mandatory procedure is as follows: upon finding a suspicious vine, the grower must report it to the local government office (or to Nébih). Inspectors then visit the site, mark the suspect vine, take a sample and send it for a PCR test. If the result is positive, the authorities order the vine to be removed.
Once an infected vine is officially detected, a quarantine must be imposed within a 1-kilometre radius. If 30% of the vines in that area are diseased, the entire vineyard stock must be uprooted. Beyond the 1-kilometre quarantine, a 3-kilometre buffer zone must also be established, where intensified monitoring and mandatory plant-protection measures apply.
In Szekszárd, János Frittmann repeatedly stressed – both as president of the National Council of Mountain Communities (HNT) and as a winemaker from Soltvadkert – that “anyone who fails to protect their vines is ruining the work of every other producer.” Yet in an interview with HVG, he also acknowledged that the system’s alarm bell only rang far too late. For this, he argued, the regional government offices and Nébih bear primary responsibility, since they possessed all the necessary legal powers but did not act in time.
Without a defence programme
If we compare FD infections to a human influenza outbreak, the logic becomes clearer: until the system detects a significant volume of cases, it will not declare an epidemiological emergency. As long as the problem remains small, it must be handled locally. Once it grows, higher-level defence mechanisms must activate.
But the situation that evolved in Hungary by the summer of 2025 shows that these escalation steps never took place. What in the EU is handled by specialised plant-health and crop-protection authorities is, in Hungary, assigned to the county government offices, supported by an additional coordinating body. And although the EU’s regulatory philosophy is built on cooperation between authorities and growers alike, Hungary’s official capacities quickly proved inadequate. The alert chain simply did not function: despite the disease being identified in Zala county in 2013, no defence programme was developed in the following 12 years. Consequently, when the crisis hit, there was no ready-made playbook.
Had there been a comprehensive strategy – a template of solutions ready to be pulled up on a computer when needed – authorities could have sequentially implemented the required steps in Keszthely, around Lake Balaton, in Etyek or in the Kunság. And Tokaj-Hegyalja might not now be preparing for its first compulsory vine removals. So argues János Illés, president of the Bodrogmenti Winemakers’ Association, whose vineyard near Bodrogkeresztúr has come under threat.
His family business – almost forty years in the making, built from scratch, producing premium wines and exporting to Italy and the US – must now prepare for the possibility that, like other members of the association, part of their vineyard will be ordered to be uprooted. According to the National Food Chain Safety Office report issued on 15 October, infected vines have been conclusively identified in one of the parcels in the Kis-Henye vineyard.
“I’ve been inspecting the vines for years; I knew this disease would eventually reach us. I watched for unfamiliar signs, read everything on the subject, took photographs. So when I saw the first indications in early July this year, I wasn’t especially surprised,” Illés recalls.
In August, after spotting symptoms of golden flavescence on several vines, he reported them to the local hegybíró (mountain district supervisor). The supervisor notified the Tarcal Research Institute, which sent a specialist a few days later. It turned out that the infection was present elsewhere in the Kis-Henye vineyard, and at a much higher rate. Ten vines were ultimately marked as suspicious, and samples were sent to the laboratory.
Although National Food Chain Safety Office (Nébih) ordered an accelerated test process, the harvest season slowed both analysis and decision-making—and also delayed the work of the newly established phytoplasma committees. These committees were tasked with walking every row of each vineyard in their district, marking all vines suspected of infection.
At the property adjacent to Illés’s, inspectors found a major infection hotspot—one severe enough to jeopardise the entire vineyard slope. Nébih has initiated formal proceedings, but no decision has yet been issued specifying the area to be uprooted. Vine removal typically takes place in winter, when vegetation is dormant and the loss is minimised.
You can’t do it alone
For years, János Illés had been “training” for the crisis through targeted, well-timed spraying, weed control and constant monitoring – but in his region he belonged to a tiny minority. In Tokaj-Hegyalja, where holdings tend to be small, most growers did not even protect against the leafhopper, leading to frequent disputes as infections crossed from one neglected parcel to the next. A systemic problem emerged: owners of abandoned or poorly managed vineyards were virtually impossible to sanction because of long legal deadlines and a slow, over-bureaucratised decision-making process.
According to sources within the agriculture ministry, this situation arose because implementation decrees had been unclear or incomplete for years – but everything changed abruptly in August. From then on, the authorities could proceed from an owner’s first warning to execution of a vine-removal order within as little as 30 days. The process sped up further when the National Tax and Customs Authority (NAV) was written into the enforcement chain, ensuring that any costs incurred would be recovered from the landowner.
But the problem of neglected land runs deeper. Conversations with growers and vineyard managers across several districts reveal that the crisis is rooted in the past decade’s economic pressures: low grape-purchasing prices and steadily rising production costs – particularly plant-protection chemicals – forced many growers to cut back drastically. Of the 4,500 hectares cultivated in Tokaj-Hegyalja, some estimate that at least 500 hectares fall into the category of “minimal maintenance.” At the same time, there is no official survey or estimate to confirm this.
To address the crisis, the government set aside 3.8 billion forints (about €9.8 million) in emergency funding for FD control. Of this, 1.7 billion forints (€4.4m) is earmarked for pesticide treatments, 1.3 billion forints (€3.35m) for clearing infected sites, and 0.8 billion forints (€2m) for drone and aerial surveillance. Affected growers can claim support of up to 12,000 forints per hectare (about €31), covering up to 75% of protection costs. By classifying FD’s spread as a force-majeure event, the government has also ensured that growers will not lose previously granted agricultural subsidies for vineyard parcels ordered to be uprooted.
But even this funding may not cover current protection costs – and certainly not the replanting that will follow. Nationwide, the average cost of re-establishing vineyards now exceeds 5 million forints per hectare (about €12,900). Numerous questions remain unanswered: how to develop a rapid-response laboratory network; where to source virus-free planting material for replanting; and what support is needed to ensure that all 22,000 hectares of vineyards can be monitored next year.
The current window for preparation – which Hungarian wine regions desperately need in order to face next year’s phytoplasma season – is overshadowed by the fact that Hungary will hold parliamentary elections in April 2026. Political attention is increasingly shifting toward campaigning.
The Slovak example
Slovakia first detected golden flavescence in 2021 in the Érsekújvár (Nové Zámky) district, yet for reasons still unexplained, quarantine was not declared until 2023. As of 21 December 2025, nine districts in the country were under quarantine.
The village of Kürt (Strekov) in the Érsekújvár district is home to some of Slovakia’s most influential natural-wine producers, such as Strekov 1075 and Kasnyik Winery. The first infected vine there was officially identified in 2024. Local winemakers, well aware of the risks, could not understand why the Central Agricultural Inspection and Testing Institute (ÚKSÚP) had not declared quarantine or begun acting under a defined methodology.
Taking matters into their own hands
Winemaker Tamás Kasnyik told us that in November 2024, a grassroots initiative led to a conference in Kürt, bringing in foreign experts with experience handling golden flavescence – primarily for educational purposes.
ÚKSÚP staff were invited with the aim of “nudging” the institute to take its first steps: to develop an information and awareness campaign, as well as an action plan and regulatory protocol. Although staff present at the conference recorded what measures were needed, no meaningful action followed until August 2025.
It was only in October that ÚKSÚP finally published proper guidance on golden flavescence, some of it available in Hungarian as well.
The second conference on the disease was held in Kürt in August 2025. Frustrated winemakers notified both the agriculture ministry and the Slovak media – a deliberate attempt to increase pressure, and one that ultimately led to partial success.
Quarantine
In the area around Kürt, institute staff took samples on 27 July 2025, just before the conference. The results did not arrive until November; owing to the positive findings, the district office declared quarantine on 11 November.
According to the quarantine decree, any vine showing symptoms of golden flavescence must be uprooted. No further sampling or laboratory testing is required within the quarantine zone. The infected plant must be burned together with its roots—if root removal is not possible, it must be treated regularly with an appropriate herbicide.
A second round of sampling—around 150 samples—took place on 18 August across the village’s vineyard sites. Growers received the laboratory results in November, accompanied by a stricter ruling due to the high number of positive tests.
The large-scale sampling confirmed the presence of phytoplasma across more than 90 hectares.
The new decree requires all infected vines to be clearly marked—using paint or ribbons—by the end of the vegetation period. By the start of the next growing season (around mid-March), all marked vines must be destroyed.
If symptomatic vines exceed 20% of a plot, the entire vineyard—or, based on grape variety distribution, the entire affected section—must be removed. In such cases, the plant-health inspector must be notified, and they will order the clearance. Each clearance is subject to mandatory reporting.
Tamás Kasnyik criticised the authorities’ slow response time: it took three months from sampling to receiving results.
Waiting for the state
Effective action is hampered by the fact that Slovakia has only 26 plant-health specialists nationwide. Even if every one of them focused solely on phytoplasma, they would not be able to monitor all affected areas. Winemakers proposed that local experts help survey vineyards, but the authorities rejected the offer.
Because of these capacity constraints, no one truly knows how extensive the infection is. Kasnyik estimates infection levels in Kürt at around 25%, and as high as 60% for some varieties.
Winemaker Zsolt Sütő said infection levels in 2025 are roughly eight times those of the previous year. He explained that they once experimented with removing only the affected part of an infected vine—sometimes cutting the vine in half—in the hope of saving 10–20-year-old plants. Sütő stressed that this method does not work: like a metastasis, the phytoplasma can appear in different parts of the vine. He himself has had to uproot two hectares.
Csaba Pereszlényi of the Felvidék Village Consultant Network produced a documentary film showing how golden flavescence is spreading across southern Slovakia. In the film, grape breeder András Korpás emphasises that the warming climate—mild winters and hot summers—has allowed new pests to emerge. He argues that vineyard plant-protection practices must return to more consistent insecticide use, as the entire region had become too lax in recent years.
Wine expert Miroslav Petrech, winemaker at Château Belá, said one of the biggest problems is the large areas of abandoned, unmanaged land. Yet he sees the goal of clearing these areas entirely as unrealistic. Without strong state intervention, Petrech fears that viticulture and winemaking in southern Slovakia may simply disappear.
At the cooperative in Muzsla, also in the Érsekújvár district, infection levels exceeded 50% across its 66-hectare vineyard by September, according to vineyard engineer József Lancz.
In Slovakia there is no financial support or compensation for prevention or for vine removal. Clearing one hectare costs roughly €5,000—an amount smaller growers cannot afford.
Both Tamás Kasnyik and Zsolt Sütő stressed that the most important realisation for every growers’ community is that without collective action, they cannot effectively fight the new threat: golden flavescence and the American leafhopper that spreads it. The coming period will test cooperation and solidarity across every wine region.
