Budapest Daily Review

All attempts to produce really good red wine in the northern Balaton region have failed so far. The truth is you can barely find half decent efforts. Villa Tolnay have been supplying the market with perhaps the most stable quality of white wines over the years. And yet they’re still betting heavily on red wines.

Névtelen 2006 is almost terracotta colored. Warm, very light nose with hints of spices, caramel and walnut. Later wild mushrooms and earthy notes. Very dry, very thin, with a slightly bitter tannic backbone. Pretty vacant.

We have seen so much better for half the price from Levendula.

Score: 4-

Price: HUF 2 600

Next in the row in the hunting for good red wines under HUF2000 series this Kékfrankos was recommended by a merchant who’s very proud of his discoveries of unknown or smaller wineries (as a matter of fact Levendula Pince’s Cabernet Sauvignon is a best seller in his store ever since I introduced it to him but I wasn’t so lucky with his recommendations so far). I was a bit disappointed by a bottle of Losonci Kékfrankos the guy once recommended to me and other minor disappointments followed.

This Halmosi Kékfrankos has a good-looking bottle (I keep forgetting taking pictures lately). The nose suggests very ripe material, aged in large used barrel ( but that’s my guess only).The reality’s different. Clear nectarine aroma on the palate but the wine is too acidic which doesn’t suite this rather thin wine. Relatively long tannic-bitter finish.

Score: 3+/4-

Price: HUF 2 100

Levendula Pince started as a winery in 2006 then called Vági Pince. In 2009 the estate consists of 2 hectares but they also have 1 hectare of “borrowed” land under cultivation which was “thrown at them” as the owner puts it. Lovas is a small village above Balatonfüred and this part of the outskirts of the village are particularly inaccessible by motorized 4-wheel vehicles. Once there, the view from the entrance of the cellar is stunning. Below us spreading are steep slopes  planted with 5 different grapes in well-maintained rows running downhill on the rusty rocky soil so typical around Balaton. The top of the cellar and a rather big surrounding area is covered in Lavendel – hence the name of the winery. The place is beautiful and the owners and winemaker are very friendly people. We’re immediately offered bread with pork fat and fresh onion rings between apologies for not having prepared anything in the traditional oven of the estate (Kemence) but of course we didn’t book such things since we ended up here after having just fled from Söptei Pince, a quite disappointing place if you ask me. With only 15 minutes left before closing the winery we are immediately taken into the back-end of the recently built cellar and shown the 225l+ oak barrels and stainless steel tanks and 1 minute later our glass is full with Juhfark 2007. About two hours later we emerged from the cellar content and happy.

Levendula Pince - grape press

The reviews

Note: the first three are barrel samples.

Juhfark 2007 is a barrel sample and as such, quite raw material. Pale hey hue. It has the most unusual dill aroma nose with Chardonnay grape notes and a hint of elderberry. On the palate dill mingle with gooseberry and other small green berry fruit elements with a green apple accent supported by abundant fresh, lively, slightly harsh acidity. Thin-bodied, light, quite acidic.

I am told by the winemaker that yields are high, they don’t really care about reducing it. The grapes were harvested in the beginning of October.

Score: 3+ points

Price: HUF 1 000 (but also available in 1,5 litre bottles at about HUF 1 500)

Chardonnay 2007 is very pale with celery and other greenish aromas on the nose, a little bit less intensely than Juhfark’s. Thick and similarly structured as Juhfark with a little bit less acidity, but still quite firm and grip.

Score: 3+

Price: HUF 1 000

Olaszrizling 2007 is another very pale wine very similar to the previous two in every aspect, with the difference of acacia and unripe walnut aromas on the palate and a gooseberry-Traubi accent.

Score: 3+ points

Price: HUF 1 000

All three wines above are very acidic, overly, if you ask me and I only recommend them for acid fanatics.

This is just illustration, the review's about the 2007 vintage

Olaszrizling Késői Szüret 2007 is a late harvest but dry wine and clearly the premium white wine of Levendula Pince. A slightly darker but still quite pale hue in appearance. A nice, warm and even sweet nose with floral notes. It reminds me of Hétszőlő’s late harvested Kövérszőlő in this aspect. Light but full of floral notes. On the palate more polished with gentle acidity and sligly greenish tannin. Wood leaf, parsley and green vegetable notes. It only has 6g/L residual sugar but 15,2% alcohol. And it’s OK.

Score: 5+

Price: HUF 1 500 (and best buy)

Cabernet Sauvingnon 2006 is medium dark ruby with an almost brownish rim.

On the palate dark chocolate supported by lively tannins and fresh acidity. Dense, concentrated and upper-medium bodied. This is a very decent effort from a region which is not famous for its red wines and from a winery not famous from low yields.

Score:5+

Price: HUF 1 500 (and it’s a best buy too, of course)

My perception has always been that Vincze Béla is one of the most overrated wine makers of Hungary (which is quite remarkable because the competition for the being the most overrated is huge in Hungary). The obscure outcome of the winemaker of the year elections didn’t change that when Vincze won in 2005 surprising many, much less skeptical persons than I am towards him. Anyway, paying half price is probably the best opportunity to give someone another chance, so this Cabernet Franc 2006 is from the stock I purchased on occasion of Wine Wednesday.

The review

Medium deep ruby with a rusty-brownish rim. With only some hints of tobacco leafs on the nose this wine is so closed  it doesn’t show anything for 90 minutes when it finally opens more with more dense tobacco and sawdust notes. The first foamy-flimsy texture will be better integrated after some time and sour cherry and chocolate elements will be added to the palate and a black-pepper accent to the nose. It remains a bit too alcoholic however. The wine as a whole improves a lot, starting from 2+ points and ending around 4 points 2 hours after opening, when I actually started to enjoy it. And let me state again here that many Hungarian red wines necessitate 2-3 hours to show something, a feature I never encountered so widespread in any other region’s wines. Would you believe that most Hungarians see this as a positive thing?

Score: 3+/4-

Price: HUF 1 600

I knew very little about Tihanyi Apátsági Pince but I was pretty certain that a visit would help. Well it did a little bit but after 2 hours in the cellar and 20 minutes googling the keywords I’m still uncertain about the ownership, the size and pretty much everything else about the winery. I decided to taste their premium label named after the (or one of the) owners, the well-known entrepreneur/property developer/ex-Skála boss Sándor “the richest Hungarian” Demján. Here’s what I found.

The reviews

Badacsonyi Olaszrizling 2008 made me realize that I won’t necessarily be tasting Tihany wines in this beautiful spot of the Tihany peninsula’s interior lake as I hoped. The wine has lemon yellow color and a closed nose with citrus aromas. On the palate green notes supported by abundant fresh acidity in this small-medium bodied Olaszrizling. Score: 3+/4-

Rosé 2008 is 60% Kékfrankos and 40% Zweigelt of relatively low yield (1,6 kilos/vine). Brassy color like those fine kitchen apparels, very nice. The bouquet is messy with earth and wet grass elements. Medium-bodied and relatively well balanced. Score: 3+

Merlot 2006 has seen 6 months in barrique. The wine has a muddy deep ruby color with Port- and Cognac notes on the nose. On the palate it’s relatively rich with dried plum and a hint of sour cherry. Nicely textured with subtle acidity and oily tannin. Relatively dense but fresh with  smoky and chocolate undertones. But it has a mainly Port wine/Cognac character on the palate too. Score: 5- points

Merlot-Cabernet Sauvignon 2006 is a 50%-50% blend of these two with 13% alcohol. Deep sour cherry color with a black core. Dense nose with chocolate, sour cherry notes. Fresh acidity. Score: 5- points

Cabernet Sauvignon 2006 is dark and dense with overly ripe sour cherry aroma on the nose. Well balanced, well structured with fresh but polished tannins and medium acidity. Very dense, with black pepper notes. And a hint of, well, sweat on the nose. Score: 5/5+ points

Dull wines.

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

I missed Somlói Tavasz Fesztivál this year taking place this last weekend so I decided to open a Juhfark.

Csordás-Fodor is a small but well known winery from Somló. You can’t miss the winery’s relatively big building if coming from Veszprém direction and you immediately notice that this building is located on the almost flat part of the southern slopes. Juhfark is one of the flagship wines of the winery made by chief winemaker Andrónyi László on the 8,5 hectares which today belong to Csordás-Fodor. They’re proud of their recently deployed cellar technology which results fermentation and maturing in steel until some of the wines are moved into large barrels for further aging. This was the case probable of this Juhfark 2007. The wine has deep golden color with brownish reflections. Lot of farmyard elements (including cat pee, yes, in Juhfark) on the heavy nose with hints of pear aroma. Medium-full bodied with a bitter-acidic character. I miss the other components and the freshness here. This wine’s very different from the ones tasted at the Somló évjáratbemutató. Too heavy and already too old without relevant substances. It comes in a nice bottle though. And it doesn’t go too well with green asparagus with anchovies, but that’s not necessarily the wine’s fault.

Score: 2+/3-

Price: HUF 1500

Eurobor’s Tűzkő line deserves a last chance and I have a Chardonnay 2007 anyway, so I didn’t hesitate to give it to them.

This Chardonnay has a deep brassy color with grape juice aromas on the nose with a tutti-frutti accent, relatively dense. It’s a bit tired on the palate, medium-bodied, not fresh, woody (but not in an oaky-vanilla way), with a wet hay character and later with grapefruit. Some unripe vegetables come through the slightly bitter mid-palate supported by harsh acidity.

According to the winery’s website this wine ages well but if you ask me, this wine’s already over its peak.

Score: 3+

Price: HUF 1 300

After reading some excellent reviews about Léder Zoltán Köpcös Furmint, 2005 of Tokaj I decided to go for it given that it’s on sale now at around HUF 1 300 which is a bargain of course.

Or not.

The review

Deep brownish color with brassy reflections. Oily move.

The nose shows signs of age but all in all it’s a pleasant sniff with caramel at first, then Furmint grape aromas. It will have a lime-blossoms undertone later.

The rest is not appealing at all: this full-bodied wine lost it’s character long time ago now fallen into pieces. It seems very old, much older than it is actually with no acidity left but residual sugar which makes it quite unbalanced too.

This wine shouldn’t have been put on sale. I know I sound bitter but I really wonder when retailers will stop selling wines after they’d become rubbish.

Score: 3/3+

Price: HUF 1 700 (I paid some 20% less on a sale)

I know that I’m gonna regret this post, sooner or later.

I always wondered how could possibly professional wine writers/critics/bloggers stay objective without being biased by their personal taste. As one can’t like the Sex Pistols and Mozart the same way, I can’t imagine how anyone could fall in love with a Sauvignon Blanc and a Chardonnay, in the same time. I must admit that Grüner Veltliner has always been my Mozart and I kept underscoring Grüner Veltliner wines until I realized that I’d been always searching something else in it whilst I didn’t appreciate its strengths. Well, at least not appreciating enough. And I’m afraid I still don’t but by now I’m at least confident enough to write and publish my notes and thoughts about Grüner Veltliner. About the choice, I got the Monarchia Grüner Veltliner from a UPC employee, apparently less fun of wines than myself (UPC employees get Monarchia wines as Xmas gift on a regular basis, since UPC central Europe’s executive actually owns Monarchia winery) and I bought the Domane Wachau Grüner Veltliner Smaragd when I was in Wien chasing some good Wachau Rieslings and other stuff from that corner of the Danube. So here’s my finding.

Monarchia – Grüner Veltliner, 2006

As you would expect, I almost thrown out the whole bottle after the first sip, yep the old reflexes had been working  yet.

Rather deep golden color. I sensed mostly sulphites on the nose with some elusive unpleasant undertone. On the palate apple note is fighting the sulphites’ heavy cavalry, or something alike, supported by an unpleasant bitterness. I would not venture to call it acidity although the wine’s structure’s not as bad as it seems. And it has a body. It1s just that the body is very ugly to my taste.

Score: 3+

Price: about HUF 1 500

Domane Wachau – Grüner Veltliner, Achleiten, Smaragd, 2006

Pale, shiny golden color with zillions of tiny bubbles. The wine has a very pleasant nose, although difficult to describe. Vinious and resembles most the Hungarian Traubi soda with early spring floral undertones and at some point, stick of celery. Not overly intense and light bouquet.

On the palate the same vinious-Traubi soda elements play a key role besides the long bitterness. The typical Grüner Veltliner character is made more pleasant by its elegance, compared to the Monarchia wine. I like especially the start, but then this character with its gooseberry aroma isn’t convincing enough for me.

The most positive about the wine is the structure. This, and its elegance make it more attractive to me than Monarchia’s Grüner Veltliner from 2006.

Score: 5

Price: EUR 16

I know that one day I’ll become a fan of Grüner veltliner. But not just yet.