Budapest Daily Review

For most people Brazil is football, samba and Rio. To me, Brazil is an important piece of my past, present and future. It’s my second homeland. But according to my friend Paulo Queiroz, Brazil is also an emerging producer of white wines, especially sparkling wines which are getting better and are already beating foreign competition in value for money in the lower segments, Paulo explains. In an effort to collaborate on certain wine topics, Paulo sent me some thoughts about Brazilian wines some months ago which I now could like to share with you. Why now? It’s overdue actually but I didn’t want to publish it before I write my part for Paulo’s blog nossovinho.com about Hungarian wines. But I was looking at a picture of Ronaldo celebrating the combined 4 x 2 victory of my beloved Corinthians over Internacional in the two final matches of Copa do Brasil (giving the seventh national title to Corinthians only equaled by Flamengo) yesterday and I thought this would be the time. I couldn’t identify the brand which Ronaldo was drinking but I can recommend a couple of other wines based on Paulo’s evaluation.

About Brazilian wines (by Paulo Queiroz, translated by me)

Brazil has about 60 000 hectares of vines which makes it the third largest producer in South-America. Mostly concentrated around the area of  Serra Gaúcha in the southern part of the country, varietals such as Chardonnay, Sémillon, Gewürtztraminer and Riesling of Italy (I’m not sure if this is the same grape as the Hungarian “Olaszrizling” , but I know that Hungarian experts were active in Brazil’s viticulture in the 1990s – admin) are produced on high altitude. The volume of sparkling Brazilian wines have shown tremendous growth in recent years. According to Madia Mundo Marketing the yearly output increased to 14 million liters in 2007 from only 6.6 millions in 2002. The quality of these wines has been improving a lot in the same time resulting in various international awards in Italy and in France. These winners include:

Espumante Garibaldi Moscatel (Gold medal winner of Effervescents du Monde (Dijon, France))

Clean and appealing with numerous medium-sized bubbles and with terrific foam shape of bright color with greenish reflections. The nose has clean and powerful aromas of melon and passion-fruit and white floral notes with a hint of honey. It has a delicate and clean palate, with good balance of sugar and acidity and elements of ripe citrus fruits.

Amadeu Brut Rose (Silver prize from Effervescents du Monde)

Made using Champagnoise method, it has a lovely cherry color with intense aromas of red fruits like strawberry. With good acidity on the palate, the wine goes well with many foods. Made of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Pinot Noir.

Still in the southern region of Bento Gonçalves from Rio Grande do Sul state (serra Gaúcha) there are several good options of red wines too. Salton Talento 2004 is an intense red wine with light and inviting aromas on the nose, even sweet a little bit with a hint of wood. On the palate it’s all different, intense, perfumed, with a bit too aggressive tannins and a bitter finish. Made of 60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Merlot and 10% Tannat. Aged in oak barrel for 12 months and 12 months in bottle.

All three wines (and more from Brazil) are available in Europe.

I’d like to thank to Paulo for his contribution and congratulate for his great blog.