(CNN) -- It may lie in Szepasszonyvolgy -- or what locals call the Valley of the Beautiful Women -- but the Golen Cellar isn't much to look at.

Nevertheless, behind this simple cavern's red doors, stenciled with the image of Bacchus, lie barrels of the best wine to be found in one of Hungary's most beautiful vineyard destinations.

Menoire is a half-sweet and fruity red wine, low in tannins.

My Hungarian mother, whose family once owned vineyards in the area, would bring me here amid the musty aroma of oak barrels and the waft of red onions on zsiros kenyer -- bread topped with lard, onion and paprika.

The wine would be decanted unceremoniously into a huge two-liter recycled Coke bottle.

'Not the rubbish you get in supermarkets'

For her, the wine in the Szepasszonyvolgy recalled her student days in the city's college and her family's connection with the area.

"Your grandfather made white wine like this," she said when tasting a glass of Csersegi Fuszeres, another local favorite.

"This is proper cellar wine, not the rubbish you get in the supermarkets."

They take wine very seriously in this part of northeastern Hungary, close to the edge of the Bukk Mountains.

At one time the local red "bulls blood" was supposed to give residents of the main town of Eger supernatural strength to ward off vampirism -- a legend born from its violent past as a trophy in battles with Ottoman invaders.

Even when my mother's family lost its vineyards after World War II, my grandfather never gave up making his own wine.