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Blau & Blau

A reader recently commented on my blog note from two years ago. It actually had me thinking whether I’d not been too harsh towards Austrian red wines. Easy to check…

2011 Pannon Bormustra winners

2011 edition of the Pannon Bormustra was meant to give a new lease of life to this respected Hungarian competition – and it did. The 48 winners confirm this.

Stéphanie Berecz of the Kikelet winery in Tokaj is one of my wine heroes. In a region where wines notoriously beat world records of concentration, her style is subtle and concentrated. Her patient work of a decade is being rewarded today with a precious accolade.

2011 Pannon Bormustra competition

A lightning visit to Budapest to taste the 48 wines awarded at the 2011 Pannon Bormustra competition: hopefully the crème de la crème of Hungarian wine.

Dobogó Furmint vertical

Four vintages of one of Tokaj’s very best dry wines: Dobogó Furmint.

The wines of Csaba Malatinszky

The famous Csaba Malatinszky sends me 6 bottles to try…

Luka Kékfrankos 2008

This post marks my new cooperation with leading Hungarian wine website A Művelt Alkoholista, which will be publishing my weekly column on good and bad bottles of wine from Hungary. Some (but not all) will be cross-posted here on this blog, but do visit the Alkoholista to enjoy the lively and thorough discussions that ensue there.

*****

Luka Soproni Kékfrankos 2008
This is one heck of a wine. I didn’t expect it to be so good (see below for rationale), but it ‘knocked my socks off’ as they say in the US. If you believe in the first-bottle-emptied drinkability factor, two people finished this 750ml in exactly 54 minutes. The drinkability is certainly helped by the 12.5% alcohol only.

In fact this is a fairly light take on Kékfrankos. It’s surprisingly light in colour, and light-medium-bodied with a fair bit of acidity; a profile that was rarely encountered in Hungary before (although it’s becoming more widespread now). Those unfamiliar to Kékfrankos will surely say it tastes like Pinot Noir, and I’d recommend to drink it at 15C. Yet’s it’s a fairly multi-layered wine with reasonable complexity of herby, meaty, earthy notes on the nose and some succulent sweet strawberry fruit on the palate. No oak in sight, very digestible and more elegant than almost any other Hungarian interpretation of the grape. (I’m told Luka wines were formerly much on the oaky and extracted side, but this 2008 is very balanced).

Until recently, Sopron in Western Hungary has been quite a puzzling wine region to me. The potential for serious red wine is obvious, but for too long the region has relied on a single vintner: Franz Weninger Jr. (although it took me some time to accept the amount of oak in his wines). The rest – Jandl, Taschner, Pfneiszl – have been decent but little more. It sorrowed me even more knowing that a few kilometers across the Austrian border, in a patch of land that is historically Hungarian and has almost exactly the same terroir, some terrific wines are being made, red and white, courtesy of such producers as Josef Umathum and Heinz Velich.

Sopron seems to be on the upswing, however, and apart from the increasingly impressive wines of Weninger, it has two great new players: the idiosyncratic Ráspi and the dynamic Luka. The wines of Luka are ambitiously priced – this Kékfrankos at 13€ from the Bortársaság wine shop chain is their cheapest wine – but judging from this bottle, well worth it. Now I’m really curious to taste the other bottlings.
Source of wine: own purchase.

Eger’s quest for self

I’m in Eger to explore the current winemaking scene. This leading Hungarian red wine region is going through a difficult period, as everywhere in Hungary. Exports are stagnant and the home market has seen its buying power shrink considerably because of the financial crunch. The numerous recent takeovers and buyouts add to the mood of uncertainty.

There’s been wide repercussion in Hungary of my earlier article (after it was translated on leading website A Művelt Alkoholista) in which I criticised the tendency towards superalcoholic blockbusters, and the issue has boomeranged several times in my talks with the producers. I’ve tasted a large number of 15% alc. wines here, and not all were bad (Gróf Buttler’s 2006 Egri Bikavér is actually spectacular) but I can’t help thinking many grapes are just picked too late: one vintner told me he had hoped to pick his Olaszrizling plots on 9th and 10th September 2009 but due to the wine festival in Budapest he had to attend, this was postponed by 6 days. No wonder some barrels topped 15% and still had some residual sugar last week.

And one producer I don’t wish to name showed us a 2002 Pinot Noir that summed up all the Hungarian disease I addressed in my earlier musings: picked completely botrytised and subjected to cold soak (“they told me in Burgundy it’s how you’re supposed to make Pinot Noir”) that slowed fermentation to several months, it reached 17.2% and over 5g of residual sugar; with vodka-like alcohol and premature oxidation, it’s a complete caricature of a wine (but the producer is very proud of it and predicts a 30-year ageing).

Fortunately there is a legion of very good wines available in Eger and from the everyday consumer’s point of view, the ‘Hungarian disease’ is not a major issue. Customer satisfaction is increased by the fact that to face a penniless local market, many producers have lowered prices, and it’s now possible to buy a fairly serious oak-aged white or red wine for 1500–1800 forints (5.50–6.50€). Some of the best bargains include the 2008 Napbor white and 2007 Bikavér Áldás red from St. Andrea, the seriously structured 2006 Egri Bikavér from rising star János Bolyki, the 2006 Bertram from Vilmos Thummerer (this Bordeauxesque blend is only 3.30€!), and the 2008 Négykezes red from Tamás Pók.

Traditional barrels in the Thummerer cellar.

We also tasted some top-class efforts from the above-mentioned wineries, such as the 2006 Bikavér Merengő (see earlier article here) and a stunningly Burgundian unfiltered 2006 Paptag Pinot Noir from St. Andrea, Tamás Pók’s extremely promising and inexpensive 2008 Pajdos, vibrant, tight, mineral and proudly Central European; a winning 2007 Síkhegy Pinot Noir from Tibor Gál as well as his penetratingly mineral 2008 Kadarka (this traditional grape has at some point almost been abandoned in Eger, but is returning to form, and we tasted a good half-dozen very recommendable wines); and a brilliant series of wines from the controversial Gróf Buttler estate, topped by a world-class 2009 Viognier, a ripe, Mediterranean but beautifully elegant 2007 Nagy-Eged Pinot Noir and the 2003 Phantom, a reserve Syrah of Hermitage-like mineral overtones.

A biodynamic vineyard of St. Andrea; in the background, the limestoney Nagy-Eged, Eger’s true grand cru.

The region faces the stylistic issue of whether to make whites and reds in a more Mediterranean of Central European style; whether the reference should be Viognier and Grenache or rather Chianti and Mâcon. I don’t mind a bit of this stylistic dualism. The former direction seems to have the upper hand at the moment, and the wines of Gróf Buttler, Ferenc Csutorás, Csaba Demeter or the more ambitious white bottlings of Lajos Gál have more than a whiff of the Rhône to them. The rich, broad, puréed black fruits register of the red wines is positively Grenache-like, and white wines with their 14–15% alcohol, low acid and herby aromas resemble Marsanne or Roussanne (and it’s no coincidence Viognier is doing quite well, whether in varietal bottlings or as an ingredient in St. Andrea’s Örökké and Tibi Gál’s Glória). Hot vintages such as 2003, 2006, 2007 and 2009 are surely encouraging this direction, and it would be unfair to say it cannot yield very good wines.

Yet my impression is that the more distinctive, terroir-driven and ageworthy wines are coming from the other side of the equation. It’s interesting that with no apparent handicap for ripe fruit flavours, St. Andrea’s Pinot Noirs can be 12.5% not 14.5%, and Tibor Gál’s various Pinots can reverberate with the sappy crisp cherry freshness that is almost Beaujolaisian in style. Other wines to look for if you like earthy, savoury, tannic, crisp red wines include those of Tamás Pók and Lajos Gál (the best of which was the Egri Bikavér Pajados 2007). Despite the uncertain economic climate and the sometimes vitriolic fraternal fights between vintners, Eger is surely showing signs of energy and progress.

Eger is waiting for a new lease of life.

Disclaimer

Accomodation during my stay in Eger is provided by the Eger Winemakers’ Guild. Meals and all wines mentioned above provided by the producers.

The Hungarian disease

(Some) expensive Hungarian red wines are a disaster.

Balsamic joy

Not a wine today, though a wine-derived product. We all know Italian balsamic vinegar and appreciate the real thing, aceto balsamico tradizionale di Modena, surely one of this planet’s most glorious man-made things. Although the principle of producing balsamic vinegar is simple – just boil grape must over fire, and then wait thirty years – it’s proven notoriously difficult to successfully emulate elsewhere. I’ve tasted balsamicos made by very good vintners in France, Spain, Germany and Australia and although really good, they were a far cry from the original Modena stuff.

Well, today’s balsamic vinegar comes quite close. It’s made in Tokaj, Hungary, by one of the leading producers of the region’s sweet wines: Dobogó (mentioned twice in my blog already: here and here). It’s vintage-dated (I’m tasting the 2005 here), and it’s made with must from aszú wine – yes, the incredibly sweet noble-rot affected ‘wine of kings, king of wines’. Even the bacteria that slowly ferment the wine into vinegar are selected from the skins of the estate’s Furmint grapes. Aged a year in Hungarian and Italian oak – and so very much shorter than a good Emilian balsamico – it’s one of the most concentrated vinegars I’ve tasted. While it doesn’t quite match the ageless viscosity of Modenian vinegar, it is very thick, with a wonderfully complex flavour ranging from fresh grapes through molasses to tertiary notes of caramel, dried figs and Marmite. Just a bit less sweet than Modena, the tang of this Tokaj vinegar is a bit more obvious (6%), making this a very good accompaniment with savoury foods. And it’s really inexpensive – 10 € for the 250 ml you see on the photos – though I don’t think it’s exported.