A few years ago, don’t remember exactly when, I’d been browsing the internet for Hungarian country accommodation in a castle or as they’re called in Hungarian, “Kúria” which is a small castle in the country usually dating back to the 19th century or before. There aren’t too many I must say and my search was narrowed to exclude otherwise very trendy wellness hotels which I never felt attracted to. I found a recently refurbished nice, one storey Kastély near Szekszárd, which turned out to be in the middle of nowhere on the smaller hills west from Szekszárd. Based on their website and the pictures of the rooms, I expected a snobbish, overly touristic Kastély with posh guests and arrogant service staff. I couldn’t be more wrong: the house was ran by a friendly late middle aged couple, the service was very polite and friendly and apart from a group of retired people we were the only guests of the Kastélyszálló. The rooms are decorated in 18th and 19th century baroque style with nice replica furniture. The atmosphere is quite antique and the only problem was the thin doors and noisy corridors, hence lack of privacy. In the sunny October the Szekszárd hills were covered in all kinds of color and the whole area was extremely quiet. The staff was very nice, polite and helping but not pushy at all. They just hired a new winemaker who appeared in the middle of our wine tasting in the cellar around 11 pm but he was too busy working with the fresh material to join us for a conversation. It was quite convincing seeing him doing all the labor intensive work himself in the middle of the night. They just came up with a new sortiment, including the price prestige series which I liked very much, although I found them too pricey at that time.

So you might wonder why there isn’t any post entry on this blog about Szent Gaál wines. The only explanation I can think of seems quite stupid, that is because I didn’t want to destroy the very good memories with a corked wine or a faultless, but weaker wine I may have encountered. I was still a little bit concerned about it but I couldn’t resist the 50% off from the Cabernet Sauvignon Válogatás (Selection) 2006 (which itself further increased my concern). But 2006 couldn’t be wrong for Cabernet Sauvingon, I thought, it was a long, hot season so the CS grapes must have been mature enough to produce a great wine just like the ones I remembered.

The review

This Cabernet Sauvignon is deep purple with an almost black core. Very dense on the nose. The wine swirls beautifully in my  Bordeaux sized glass, releasing high concentration of berry fruit aromas, blackberry, sour cherry, chocolate and mostly dried plum elements with a hint of clove. And a little bit too much alcohol I must say.

The palate also has a dense, fruity character with an oaky accent. Full-bodied and well-balanced, although a bit alcoholic to some people. Very appealing texture with polished, powdery tannins which, unfortunately, will be too oily after 60-90 minutes. There’s a hint of nice, sour cherry core-like bitterness in the not so long finish. This wine’s in a good shape right now but it won’t age very well for too long.

Score: 6-

Price: HUF 3 400

This wine is fairly priced, just a bit above what I would feel really fair. But if we can believe what Szent Gaál are saying on their website, further price reduction can be underway. 

Budapest Daily Review is one year old.

I started to publish my tasting notes a year ago but it wasn’t meant to be a blog. I just wanted to make my notes searchable and (why not?) available to those who are interested in a second opinion, other than the merchant’s or the winemaker’s him/herself in English. Interestingly enough, another guy went through similar thoughts in the same period of last year and started a blog about Hungarian wines in German language.

I never asked Peter (writer of borwerk.de wine blog) why he started his blog but there are two major differences in the result, as far as I can judge using babelfish and google translator because my German knowledge is hardly sufficient to survive in an Austrian hütte. First, Peter doesn’t give out scores. Second, he makes proper research of the wineries and writes intelligent introduction to the tasting notes. The most important similarity however, may be that we are independent, not qualified wine lovers, passionates, who would like to see a dramatic improvement in the quality of affordable Hungarian wines. We decided to celebrate a year in wine drinking and sharing tasting notes with a joint tasting of two “cult “wines. Here’s what we found.

Ráspi – Kékfrankos, Öreg Tőkék Szelekció, 2005

After 3 hours in a decanter/open bottle, this Kékfrankos has a spicy nose with a smoky accent. As almost usual, this Ráspi wine won’t have clean fruit or other clear elements. Instead, it has a complex bouquet which is more interesting than elegant or anything else, with notes like sour cherry stewed in Cognac. Well, cherry cherry too but not in its pure form either. The color of the wine is just as unclear as the rest of it: medium ruby with brick color and an almost watery rim. On the palate cherry with a mineral underpinning. Small bodied with an acidic character and firm tannins. As we compare it an hour later to Weninger’s Kékfrankos Barrique 2000, the wine has a quite unusual Cognac-like perfumy nose that is so not Kékfrankos… but very interesting and distinguished.

Score: 6-

Weninger, Kékfrankos Barrique, 2000

This Kékfrankos has a dark ruby color with black reflections. Quite intense on the nose, still fresh, with cherry aromas and a steady Kékfrankos character with a smoky accent once again. Unlike the Ráspi wine, this is Kékfrankos on the palate too but in a larger body and more syrup-like. More concentrated, cleaner and more straightforward. Much less acidity, slightly imbalanced just as Ráspi’s only the other way around. On the palate this wine has a blackberry character.

Score: 5+

Peter’s notes are published on his blog. (Just for the record: Peter speaks English fluently (as well as Hungarian, at least one Scandinavian language and only Rozi knows what else) but he doesn’t intend to write neither in Hungarian or English.)

Note: photo is courtesy of Peter Klingler.