This year, the Wine Festival is changing an old habit: when arriving at the cash desks, visitors will no longer automatically receive the elegant, neck-hooked wineglass holder, but that doesn't mean that it will be any less comfortable to drink wine. The stirrers will of course be available to everyone this year, but in the spirit of sustainability, they will only be given to those who really want them. So all you have to do is visit the Malt Manufactory Point stand in the Lion's Court, where you can simply ask for a bottle. At the stand you can also see, admire and buy other beautiful handmade products of the Maltese Manufactory.

But who has been making the Wine Festival's wineglass holder for the past 5 years?

One of the life-changing events in the lives of the seamstresses of Tiszabura, one of Hungary's poorest villages, was when they sewed 40,000 hanging cup holders for the 2018 Wine Festival. Building on this success, the Hungarian Maltese Relief Service has opened a sewing workshop in other disadvantaged communities.

These workshops, which employ a few people and help to socialise people for work, play a very important role in the life of rural communities. For most of them, they are the easiest way out of the intergenerational hopelessness they have experienced in one of Hungary's 300 poorest villages. According to the Inclusive Settlements Project (FETE), work socialisation and quality, recycling and community building go hand in hand in the latest exciting project, in which seamstresses are reimagining work clothes and discarded jeans donated by residents to make a variety of 'recycled' ornaments, bags, bean bag chairs and cushions. Check out Manufaktur's creatively recycled products! With your purchase, you personally contribute to help people living in FETE settlements experience the value and usefulness of their work.