Villa Tolnay are better known for their white wines, often laballed “terroir” and “artisan” wines by the snobbish community (they’re in my opinion simply one of the most exciting wineries in the Balaton region along with wineries like best-buy producer Scheller and the more unpredictable Szászi Endre). I was recommended this particular (arguably a limited edition) Kékfrankos by someone close to an online wine portal, describing it as a great, fruity red wine under HUF 2 000 selected by the said portal who (I was being told) had been looking for a wine to sell as their own brand for a long time for. The time has come.

However, a Kékfrankos from 2007 from the northern-Balaton region doesn’t sound too promising does it? Suspicious? Let’s see.

Classic ruby color with a not so classic black core. The nose is light but full of toast, burnt bread actually, mingled with red steak and a touch of cherry. The palate has a similar character with toast and meat supported by young, thin but hard and still harsh tannins and medium acidity. The tannins smoothen after 2 hours a little, the acids retreat a bit but a bitter-sour element remains. The overall impression is somewhat enhanced by a chocolate note on the nose and hints of cherry on the palate.

All in all this wine is unworthy of Villa Tolnay who are able to produce not inexpensive, but good white wines year after year. And the online publishment shouldn’t be so proud of their long awaited selection either. It’s quite disappointing actually, after so much hype.

Score: 4-

Price: HUF 2000

2003 produced some of the first really remarkable great white wines this country’s seen in this millennium (just think about Mandolás Furmint). We learend to appreciate this vintage even more after the tough 2004 and 2005 vintages. The glory of most of these wines, however, didn’t last for more than 4  years, some of them starting a sharp decline as early as in 2006. On the other hand, some of these wineries couldn’t repeat their performance up until now (again, think about Mandolás). The wines from the north bank of Balaton have been having hard times as well. Still, or maybe because if this, I was very happy to discover this already forgotten Kereklevelű (known as Chardonnay beyond the Carpathians) in my cellar from Tóth Sándor (aka Scheller).

The review

Medium-deep hay on the glass, the wine opens slowly to show some flinty notes on the nose. On the palate an almond element mingles with lot of rustic, but attractable minerality. This latter becomes denser, just as the whole wine, after one hour and a half. Medium-large bodied wine supported by lower-medium acidity (which means there could be a little bit more) and a slightly bitter minerality. A bit sweet, the wine is still fresh and in good shape right now with soft, slightly sandy tannin. The marzipan and almond is later faded by dried apricot and even richer minerality. I sometimes sense a botrytis-ish element in the background.

This wine will give you lot of pleasure for only HUF 1 600 especially if you can give it an hour or so before drinking.

Score: 5+

Price: HUF 1 600

I first appreciated the affordable wines of Paternina of Rioja on my first trip to Madrid and the Banda Azul brand accompanied us through our journey through Toledo, Córdoba, Sevilla, Ronda, Cabo de Gata to Segovia. When we went back few years later to visit le Pays Basque and País Vasco, we visited their winery near Haro (I think, btw, that everyone should visit that land if for nothing else but their tapas bars). I picked up a cheap Chardonnay there, from 2006. This ultra-light wine of pale greenish color is fresh and young with a celery and fennel character supported by crisp acidity in smaller quantity. It’s still slightly sparkling on the palate. This wine is a decent 3+ points effort and provided a good basis of comparison to the very different Áldozóhegyi.

A cheap Szürkebarát with a relatively deep hue is always suspicious. Of course you don’t see it through a bottle (which, in this case is rather pretty). I don’t know why I keep running into oxidized wines in this segment but this one from Dörgicse wasn’t different. It’s like all went wrong with this wine: it has a slightly appalling nose of rotten grape, slightly sweet, the alcohol burns and it has no substance whatsoever. On top of this the finish is bitter. The wine comes with a plastic cork. The nose didn’t show typical corked character. Still, this wine is barely drinkable.

Pántlika owns 40 hectares around Dörgicse, a well-preserved small village with a stunning view of lake Balaton, and it probably makes it the largest winery of than region. Although the cellar’s based in a former socialist co-op “hangar”, the front-end of the headquarters is a nice old-fashioned stone house. After this dichotomy I was very much looking forward to tasting their wines, made by a 19 year-old (!) winemaker.

The reviews

The Olaszrizling Válogatás 2006 was the first ever made in the history of the winery. Pale yellow with greenish reflections, this Olaszrizling has an intense nettle nose. On the palate it’s light, thin and quite empty for a “selection” with relatively low yield per vine. Slightly sparkling on the palate with nettle and elderberry flavors. It’s a bit tart from the mid-palate.

Score: 3+ points

Sauvignon Blanc 2008. This pale yellow wine also has nettle aromas on the nose and on the palate but a bit more warm and with a flinty-gas accent. Better textured, more creamy but it’s just as thin as the Olaszrizling. Less acidity here but better rounded.

Score: 3+ points

Chardonnay 2008 is bright with medium-deep yellow tone. More closed on the nose, fairly fruity but this one’s also very thin-bodied, although well balanced but it’s a wine without character.

Score: 3+ points

You’ll find informative pictures on the website of the winery: pantlikapinceszet.hu

This is the debut of Villa Tolnay on Budapest Daily Review although I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time. The Swiss owner Philipp Oser started making wine in Csobánc (Balaton region) in 2005 and currently has a bit more than 5 hectares of which almost 50% planted with red varietals (mostly Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon I think). All of their wines are matured in oak barrels and they’re not using modern winemaking technologies but focusing on low-yields so Tolnay belongs the so called handicraft winery movement. This Rajnai Rizling 2007 (aka Tavasz) is the entry-level wine of this small winery.

Pale yellow with greenish and metallic reflections, showing freshness and indeed the nose is full of fresh greenish, grassy aromas with a lemon accent. On the palate it’s very refreshing too with very nice, lively acidity and a salty-chalky element for re-balancing the residual sugar this wine certainly has. It’s light bodied and pleasant to drink. This wine has apple and green pear elements too and a long, acidic finish. I expected some oaky notes but there isn’t any. A decent effort from an IT expert. And a very good value for the money.

Score:5, 5+

Price: HUF 1 500

Bortársaság is a major wine store chain in Hungary. Their own product line consist of three pieces and this white cuvée was made in  Fodor Béla’s winery of Balatonszőlős (the red’s made in the Takler winery and the rosé at Villány’s Ikon).

The suspiciously low price (about HUF 1 100) for this big, although nicely designed bottle from an unknown producer (Fodor’s name doesn’t appear on the front label) repels wine snobs just as much as it attracts students and low-budget drinkers. I thought that this, put aside Tüske’s red magnum was the ultimate party wine purchased in the last minute by the said target market. I decided to test it on members of a family reunion and it was very well received. And indeed, this is a light wine however well-balanced and with a remarkably integrated structure. It’s fruity on the nose and on the palate too. It’s way ahead of many 75 cl bottled white wines and for HUF 550 a liter it’s a real bargain. And not just for parties.

I went to Csalogány 26 restaurant the other day for a quick lunch and I was offered the house’s red wine for only HUF 200/100 cl and it turned out to be a very good choice (a  cuvée from the Malatinszky winery made specially for the restaurant). I was very surprised by the price in such a good restaurant but I think that this is the way to get Hungarians drink wine in restaurants (yes, they don’t). The price of wines in Hungarian restaurants is outrageous. Some people my have realised this so they organised Wine Wednesday (or Borszerda), a single day in a year when participants (few dozen restaurants in Budapest for instance) offer wines at a 50% discount. They still make a good profit on it so I’m surprised why most good restaurants did not list up for the event.

That good wines are to be found on the north bank of Balaton I knew ever since I met the Figula winery in the late nineties. It’s just difficult to find them, I suspect because of the tourists flooding the region during summer period and these crowds don’t seem overly wine-conscious people. I’ve been back to Badacsony once or twice since I blocked that beautiful mountain out because of one particular “winemaker”, but I wasn’t impressed (with few exception like Laposa) and I never got to meet the Domaine Edegger people (they were always closed when I passed by). Tamás Pince is amazing but expensive and Figula keeps up to its name with Mihály Jr. in the cockpit. I encountered a few light, promising wines during this summer’s Füred Borfeszivál (wine festival) but the only truly exciting winemaker in the region to me remained Tóth (Scheller) Sándor. (I keep on searching though)

The Scheller winery’s website is a joke (www.schellerbor.iweb.hu/) and since internet is my prime source of information I won’t be able to tell what exactly this cuvée was made of.

The review - Tóth Sándor (Scheller) - (Áldozóhegyi) Opeonbor, 2003

Medium pale golden yellow color and a fast move.

The nose is clean, with cheerful floral (and slightly herby) aromas and a stony undertone. Very light too, not intense at all. Later it will have a light tangerine/lemon peel note too.

Very appealing texture on the palate but even this medium-small bodied wine would require more acids. The mineral notes mingle with litchi, but not very expressively. The wine still offers a young, fresh sensation in spite of its age and it’s still pretty enjoyable. Only the acids disappeared too early.

Score: 5-/- (it probably used to be a 5+ 2 years ago)

Price: HUF 1 650

What a modest title. I came up with it in only 1 minute of thinking. In my defense: it’s search-engine friendly and it’s true, from my perspective. Anyway, here’s the almost complete list of tasted wines and their score from 2008.

One remark, except the festival notes, all reviews were written based on at least 1/2 bottle of wine tasted by me alone over several hours, at least once over this period. Even wines presented in quick notes. Any occasional exception was mentioned in the given post, but they were maximum 2 or 3, if any.

Tasting Scores 2008

Wine Festival

Tasting Scores

I don’t even dare to translate the word “Bországgyűlés” for You, although the significant number of foreigners who visited the event despite the heavy rain which lasted almost the whole day would deserve a try. Anyway, it wasn’t a gathering of the nations’ parliamentary delegates of winemaking as the name would suggest, I was actually surprised by the small number of wineries present, but even more by their distribution within the festival area. Despite the intense grass and other natural smell coming from the surrounding park in the rain I tried to take tasting notes. My idea was that I would taste and review the winners of the VIIth Pannon Bormustra contest. Unfortunately very few of the winners actually exhibited at the Festival so I’ll indicate in the table below those who won the “Top Wine” awarded by a jury consisting of international experts like Dante Brancaleoni and winemakers like René Rostaing as well as Hungarian wine drinkers or so called experts. As always, please read the following report as a rough guide only, since I hardly ever spit during a wine tasting (unless the wine is really rubbish) and the local food selection has also provided a strong smelly background which certainly distorted the senses. So here’s a quick snapshot from the Festival, without any in-depth analysis.

Here’s a photo from the venue of one of Budapest’s most important wine festivals.

I must admit I am not a regular festival visitor and I was surprised by the size of the Somló Tavasz festival: about a dozen twin kiosks, a hundred visitors and a huge tent describe well the scale of this event on the meadow on the outskirts of Somlóvásárhely. According to my winemaker friend, 40% of the visitors are regular festivalgoers who never miss one (hence the marketing value of the event is a bit questionable). All ages and all types of people were present: old ladies from the neighbouring villages sat in the tent quitely sipping their drinks while staring at the stage to check the appearance of a folklore dance group, there were families wandering around, kids riding horses, and some young folks trying to get a bit drunk. I really couldn’t spot any of the urban yuppies here who usually frequent these types of events. And no foreigners either.

It was charming and looked more like a big family reunion in a family where winemaking tradition’s got its roots from times when Juhfark was not yet recognised as a standalone grape.

Besides the local names (Györgykovács, Tornai, etc.) almost the same number of guest winemakers offered their wines, with few exceptions almost only from 2006 and 2005.

I really don’t think that festivals allow you to do some in-depth analysis of wine, it’s rather a quick scan of where are we standing and tasting unknown wines and trying to memorise those that you would like to try at home. So here are my notes, but since I did swallow all of these (at least in quantities of 1/2 dl) the objectivity is questionalbe. So I keep the order, I leave it to you what “filter” you apply to my judgement.