Budapest Daily Review

There was a time when I thought that Szent Gaál was about to become the next big thing but it never happened. Is it because they’re present in hypermarkets all over the place (so no way wine snobs will ever write anything good about them), or they didn’t improve much while others made a good progress I’m not sure, but maybe because of both.

Dark ruby just the way it should be. Lovely sour cherry marmalade nose mingled with ripe mulberry and a hint of dark chocolate. Very edgy tannins on the palate, quite hard and a tiny bit tart too. Very nice, long finish with dark chocolate.

One thing is certain: Szent Gaál may not have produced their great wine yet (it’s certainly not this one) but they never produced shamelessly bad wine either, unlike some big names form this region or further to the south-west.

Score: 4+ (now I would give it 5-)

Price: HUF 3 700

For a long time I didn’t realise that Gróf Buttler had wine under HUF 5 000. With a price tag well under 3 000 this Cabernet Sauvignon looked suspicious. Hungarian red wines under 3 500 are a scary business.

Dark core and purplish reflection. GB wines usually have charming, warm nose, slightly restrained first – well this one wasn’t different so my suspicion started to disappear. With notes os savory and other spices the nose is quite appealing. And with minth, herbal and camomile notes later on it’s even surprising. Remains slightly restrained though.

Very hard structure on the palate with a ripe tannic underpinning. The texture is the usual dense syrup.

After being uncorked for 24 hours the tannins smoothen and the wine’s even more tasty with an even friendlier character. It didn’t lose any of it’s charm in the same time.

I recommend this wine for everyday drinking, it’s good value for the money and it’s almost unique in this price range.

Score: 6-

Price: HUF 2 500

Maybe Szekszárdwill be the region producing the most new world kind of Cabernet Sauvignons and red wines in general in Hungary. Maybe people will like it but one thing is certain: Hungary’s consumers and wineries have been so far resisting to the trends and to styles coming from overseas shaping the world’s wine taste. Maybe these wines will not provide Szekszárd the competitive edge but neither did Kadarka. So why not give it a try. Konyári did. Others did too, Eszterbauer is actually more Californian now than Hungarian as long as his style is concerned. But instead of further generalizing let’s get to the short review of Konyári’s Cabernet Sauvignon 2006.

The review

Medium deep ruby color with black beet reflections. The wine has a quick move in the glass.

The nose is not intense and not as rich in fruit as I expected. But it has a cherry aroma in it and a very new world-y vinious character. On the palate this medium-bodied wine has medium acidity with a sloe fruit element and little else. It’s young, fresh tannins are pleasant though. The wine, however, is “empty”. It’s enjoyable but without any rich aromas of fruit, minerality, leather or whatever you’d expect from a Cabernet Sauvignon. It’s balanced, has a thin but good structure, it’s good to drink and it’s relatively fairly priced.

Score: 4-

Price: HUF 1 500

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.

I stopped buying Teleki wines before they existed. I was guided through Kopár dülő by Attila Gere in 2001 and on our way uphill to where his best Cabernet Franc, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon were grown before eventually fulfilling their destiny in the prestige cuvée Kopár, we passed by delapidated plots where grasses grown almost as high as vines themselves. They made a sharp contrast to Gere’s new plantations put in rigorous order and apparently subject to regular manual maintenance. Those were the plots of Villány Borgazdaság, in their decline, the ancestor of Csányi Pincészet.

For sure, Mr. Csányi may have made it the most modern and best run winery of the country (he’s got the funds for it) but why would he do that? He can sell as much of his crap as he wants through the MOL gas  station shops all over the country, a sale channel many winemakers wouldn’t dare to dream of.

On the other hand, Csányi Pincészet has 340 hectars in total which is enormous with Hungarian standards, so he could afford to venture some money with not-so-mass market wines and I did, as a matter of fact, run into some robust Chateau Teleki wines which weren’t bad after all. But this is the first time I got into tasting the lower segment of the sortiment. I must admit that I got this bottle as a present of an OTP employee, although I’m not suspecting that she got (unlike the UPC employees) this particular wine as a gift from OTP.

The review

Csányi Pincészet, Teleki, Villányi Cabernet Sauvignon, 2006

Deep ruby color and a medium lively move, indicating medium body.

The nose is, I regret to say, very common new mass wine of the new world type. There’s no simplest way to put it and I’m not a sophisticated writer. It’s not unpleasant, it’s just extremely undistinguished. It carries some cherry- and plum-jam notes with a little bit of pepper, wood and alcohol.

On the palate the evidences of ripe vine harvest are clear. High concentration of extracts, syrup-like consistency and tannins so plished that they’re actually almost totally eliminated from the formula. Very new world-y. The medium body doesn’t get support of acidity.

I think that 2006 was a suitable year for these kinds of wines and I must admint that for as much as 1 300 forints you seldom can buy better red wines in Hungary.

Score: 4-

Price: HUF 1 300

But you wouldn’t tell. I must admit I opened these wines on a special occasion which also happened to be an open-air barbecue. So my notes are short and include an unusual level of uncertainty.

The aim is clear: how’s been the Gere Cabernet Sauvignon Barrique and Kopár Cuvéé (both from the classic 2000 vintage) evolved over the years. Bot were kept in cellar in equal conditions. Perhaps the Cabernet Sauvignon has a handicap for having spent few weeks in my apartment prior to moving to a proper place.

The review

Gere Attila – Cabernet Sauvignon Barrique, 2000

Dark ruby color with purplish reflections and a brick rim.

Typical cabernet and paprika nose with raspberry underpinning.

On the palate sour, robust tannins and acidity. In my memories this was a full-bodied wine but I had to wait an hour to recover that feeling. In the same time the tannin hydes behind the acidity. Overall the wine doen’t really improve in the decanter.

Too old, the sine hasn’t delivered the expected potential.

Score: 4/5-

Price: unavailable. 2005: HUF 4 300 / EUR 18

Gere Attila – Kopár Cuvée, 2000

Lively deep cherry color. It gets much much deeper with time.

Full-bodied wine with some residual sugar, round acidity and elegant, velvety tannins. On the palate intense chocolate flavor and sour cherry. Huge body. Merlot is dominant. Still fresh and lively.

The wine still has potential for at least a couple of years.

Score: 7+/8-

Price: unavailabe, or sky-high. Newer vintages range between HUF 7 000 and 9 000.

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)