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’m not particularly good in pairing food and wines. Although I became interested in it I’ve never had the time to learn about it. Besides, my major problem is always whether to pick a wine and chose the right food, or the other way around. To be honest, I don’t think the first makes too much sense. And since I think (and maybe I’m wrong) that most wines will show their best values and will be most enjoyable if one didn’t eat anything at all for hours prior to or during drinking the wine, this, most of the time doesn’t cause any problem to me. I usually taste a wine for hours before finishing the bottle off with some food. Restaurants and Xmas are exceptions.

So in the case of the wines in this post, I tasted them first before any meal but eventually we started eating before I could finish my several hours long drinking for only the pleasure of it.

Ráspi – Mithras Cuvée, 2006

Medium pale color. Not very clean, as you can see on the picture.

This cuvée has a very unusual nose. First, its very complex, I felt I couldn’t name one third of the aromas I could sniff. Second, it’s very light and medium fresh. But most important of all, it’s very different. Well, there are  common intense floral and vinous notes an Irsai Olivér would have, but there’s minerality too and this unsolvable thing which is very Ráspi.

On the palate it has the usual salty-minerality character with the above mentioned Irsai elements and a grassy undertone. The wine has medium-small body and a good structure for such. The biting salty-minerality in the middle of the tongue soon moves backwards and leaves a long finish back there, with some bitterness sitting on the salt.

Later the nose develops into a very interesting ramen soup with crab, which is very interesting and pleasant.

Socre: 4/4+

Price: HUF 1 000 (This is how much I paid to the winemaker but the actual retail price is unknown to me)

Hétszőlő – Hárslevelű Late Harvest ,2005

Bright golden color. It has a fruity nose with intense pear aromas. On the palate, stewed pear, peach and later apple elements and a medium level of acidic sensation. Not bad from someone who only really believes in Aszú wines in Tokaj.

Score: 4 points

Bussay – Esküvé, 2006

Everything I wrote here still applies to the wine. Acidic character with a medium-small body, pale color and lively move. I gave it 4 points this time but it really may be just because of the wines and food I had before drinking it. Still a good wine, fairly priced.

Malatinszky – Cabernet Sauvignon, 2000

Medium deep brownish-ruby color with a brick color rim. It has a lively move at opening. I don’t know whether it has any scientific reason or it’s just my mind playing tricks on me but I tend to see old wines getting darker, slower and more concentrated after a few hours of decanting. This is what happened with this wine as well.

From opening it has a chalky-smoky character on the nose mingled with black-currant and later black-berry and sour cherry. Interestingly its tannins are very soft at opening but becoming harsh after a few minutes before finally smoothing again. The wine has a bit more than medium acidity and a sour-bitter character from the beginning until several hours later. It’s relatively small body is made more pleasant by a nutmeat element on the palate.

Score: 5, 5+ points

C. Da Silva S.A. (V.N. De Gaia) – Cruzados (Vinho de Porto)

Drinking Port wine at Xmas is considered a major treason by many Hungarians. I had different plans myself (although I’m not one of them), but my father suggested to open a Port wine which we brought to him from Portugal in 2001. The label has no vintage which in Porto means that it’s a mix of different (sometimes poorer) vintages.

The special about the wine is that unlike most Port wines this one is a white Port but I’m not sure if it’s actually made of white grapes. Anyway, it has a pale rum color with orange-brassy reflections. It also has a very appealing bottle which also reminds me of old rum bottles.

The nose is dried-grape, burnt sugar and cognac and the palate provides further evidence of brandy: the alcohol (19%) burns. This wine spent a lot of time in barrel and this, combined with the above elements doesn’t allow any tannin or acidity to be noticed. On the other hand it has a long praline-like finish with herbs and canned quince elements added.

I’m not sure if it would be fair to compare a Port wine with any other wine so I won’t give any points here. Let’s just say that it’s a very pleasant drink but doesn’t really compare to a Tokaji or a Sauternes.

It’s a misterious fact that even popular restaurants tend to have an awful wine list, either in-house selection or made for them by their wine supplier. Someone could explain me the 2006 Malatinszky Cabernet Sauvignon on the list in early 2008? People, taste it, or ask someone, outsource your choice!

Anyway, I believe that my dinner yesterday in Kiskakukk restaurant may require some explanation as well. Being a typical tourist trap (fake-hungarian cuisine, terrible service, fake-nostalgic interior, wines…) it should not attract me normally, but my foreign guest insisted in wanting to eat Hungarian “disznótoros” (mostly sausage, black-pudding and even more exotic parts of pork) I had no other choice than (since I don’t know these restaurants) I had to make an extremely quick internet research.

We finished 2 bottles of wine during the evening, both sold to us at HUF 4 000 (EUR 16). The first choice was a light Kékfrankos (better known as Blaufrankisch in the rest of the world).

The review – Szt. Gaál Kékfrankos 2005

Intense, deep fresh raspberry/cherry colour. So far so good.

The smell translates into similar taste with a slightly different tone. Excellent transition, smell and taste walk hand in hand. The fruityness disappears relatively quickly and the finish is smooth, no sign of tannin, alcohol burning or too much acid. Nice finish. It’s an overall charming, nice wine. EUR 9 is a fair value for it.

Score: 6

Price: EUR 9 (store price, fair value)

The Review – Malatinszky Cabernet Sauvigning 2006, Barrique (Villány)

Our second selection (we must drink a Hungarian Cabernet Sauvignon, I am told by my guest) is my big mistake. Or partly, because this wine takes me back to the 90s, when the quality and trendyness of the CS in Villány and elswhere were measured by the level of tannin in the bottle. But this much tannin cannot be extracted deom the barrel nor from the vine. It’s harsh, oily texture is in huge contrast with the Szt. Gaál Kékfrankos. I know it’s a young wine, still, after massacring a significant amount of gustatory cells in our tongue, we decide to give it some time in the decanter (we had to ask for it in the restaurant, of course). It did not help. After an hour, it’s smell (fruity also, but not so intense and elegant as in the Kékfrankos) got better, but in taste the tannin is still so dominant I can’t think of anything else, scratching the middle, upper and back part of my mouth, whilst the sweetness in the forefront of our tongue is living its own life. Hugely disappointing from Malatinszky, who’s already shown lot better than this CS before. I’m getting suspicious though, I just read Malatinszky’s rate of the year 2006 (his highest score).

I wish I never got back so distant in time. At least I’m happy to be back today, and I’m leaving soon for the Etyek Pincefesztivál, one of the biggest wine events in Hungary.

Score: 3+

Price: EUR 9 (overrated)