It’s been a while since I wrote an entry here. It’s due to many factors, one of them being that I felt blogging’s become suddenly a bit old-fashioned when masses begun sharing information with each other through social network sites and individual blogs seemed to have lost their appeal to other tools too, like Twitter. Leaving other factors behind (laziness standing out in particular) for now, I’m not sure if this is going to be a last post or others will follow. This one is not even inspired by a particular wine, I’m simply in the mood of writing a post about one or maybe several of the wines I liked this summer. So here’s one, if not exactly off the top of my head, but a more or less random one of those wines I took note of lately.

Heimann – Syrah (2008)

Rather darkish carbon-paper blue with a matt purplish rim. Forest soil and tobacco-like notes mingle on the nose. On the palate it’s soft and dense with velvety tannins which flow into a fairly long finish, carrying tasty notes of sour cherry but without the annoying bitterness. Nice curve in the mouth. After some exposure to air, the wine develops a fairly rich but not too intense bouquet of toasted bread and perfectly ripe dark berry fruits. As the wine’s character becomes more jammy, it displays ripe and sweet forest berry aromas. Smooth, well balanced dense wine without becoming too weighty.

Very good to drink and easy to like, this wine’s well worth HUF 3 300.

See other good value Heimann wines here.

Lively medium-deep ruby.

The nose is packed with ripe forest fruits, leveraging notes of jammy black-currant and mulberry. Quite fleshy bouquet with hints of oaky spices. Medium-bodied, well-balanced wine with gentle acidity and a young tannic backbone, which mixtures with alcohol (lots of it) resulting in a not too well defined texture. Leather notes in a rather short finish.

Like most Heimann wines, this is a fairly priced piece of Szekszárd.

Intense blast of berry fruits and the clean smell of a basket of blackberry.

Still young, small medium-bodied wine with a peppery, toasty appeal. Good length with ripe tobacco leaf, tobacco and a hint of tannic tartness.

The wine responds well to airing, getting texturally softer, heavier and denser.

As the cheapest GB red wine out there, this is perhaps not as complex as in 2007 at present, it might still age well into a remarkable piece of Cabernet Sauvignon in 2-3 years of time.

Brassy beige hue. Meadow floral bouquet, fresh but rather restrained with notes of acacia and boiled parsley. Weighty palate with a creamy texture and very subtle acidity. Restrained aromas at the entry, short and a bit dull character at the finish. Yet it’s a pleasant drink, with gently composed marzipan and pistachio. It’s an overall decent effort from (my preferred?) Mátraalja winemaker.

Szecskő - Szürkebarát, 2008

Deep golden yellow. Heavy bouquet, revealing almost nothing in terms of fruits or else. On the palate highly concentrated substance with some wet grassy notes at opening. Full-bodied wine, rich in fairly exciting stoney and mineral notes from the mid-palate, but I’d like more acidity and liveliness here. It looks like acids cannot bear the 16% alcohol. Good length though. When chilled it’ll reveal an even richer stony character  with picante olive aromas and texture.

I recommend this for lovers of rather enigmatic wines.

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