Budapest Daily Review

From viticulture point of view, 2003 was a good year in Badacsony as long as weather is concerned. Not exceptionally but it was as good as 2000 and definitely better than 2002 (please see previous post).

The Szeremley Kéknyelű 2003 has got a pale yellow color with hue similar to the Kéknyelű 2002. The nose has an intense flinty character almost as much as you can find in Takács Lajos (Hollóvár) wines from Somló some 80 km away. Impressive, very different from the others. This mineral element is enriched by acacia and nettle elements with a grassy accent.

On the palate fairly rich vegetable notes of parsley and celery in a medium-small body. The wine’s a bit tired, I expected more freshness from this Kéknyelű. This is the less acidic of the 4 vintages so it remains very subtle, with short length just as the others but this one has the nicest texture with just a bit too much alcohol.

Score: 4+

Kéknyelű 2004 has a pale and very clean appearance. This one has a very closed nose and will not open.

This small-bodied wine has an acidic character on the palate, fresh and crispy and even a little bit sparkling. Fair fruitiness with gooseberry and ripe apple and other continental fruit notes.

Score: 4+ points

Conclusion

You must be an experienced and passionate wine lover to fully appreciate the nuances of this tasting that would cost you HUF 20 000. But if you have the money to spend than you’ll find it interesting enough.

Kéknyelű grape is one of the less grown widely known varietals in Hungary. Internet sources are quite unreliable in respect of almost everything about the grape: contradictory information circulate regarding its origins (one says its one of the most traditional Hungarian varietals others are not so sure about its Italian origins), it’s character (some sources describe the wines made from Kéknyelű as being very elegant, fruity, others emphasize its harsh, rustic character and that it’s only suitable for blending). All sources agree, however, that growing Kéknyelű is a tough job and yields are low. Even the most skeptical sources admit that in good years, Kéknyelű can produce exceptional wines. To test this, we tasted 4 wines of different vintages from Badacsony’s best known and respected by many wineries. I have to make a disclosure here however: I may easily be the last person in Hungary who never tasted a Szeremley wine before. That’s because for reasons I cannot fully recollect any more (something about his obscure businesses from his past I heard from reliable sources)  I’d been boycotting Szeremley Huba’s winery up ’til now. But I agreed to do a vertical tasting of this rare varietal with Peter from borwerk.de, whose tasting notes are also available on his blog.

The reviews

I must admit that I don’t really like mass wine tasting, it’s more a job or a sport rather than enjoying wines. This vertical tasting, on the other hand, where we had 4 entire bottles for us alone, is confusing too, hence the short notes in spite of the otherwise ideal conditions.

Szeremley Badacsonyi Kéknyelű, 2000. This wasn’t a blind tasting, however, getting started with the oldest one this age difference was obvious at first sight. This wine has by far the deepest color, deep golden yellow with a brownish hue. The nose was complex but it also confirmed what I suspected from the cork and the color is that the wine is oxidized. It remained drinkable however and the fact the the bottle was a bit faulty added to the wine’s complexity, but reduced its freshness. Indeed, this was the heaviest, with different kinds of honey and floral aromas on the nose. Slightly heavier than a medium bodied wine, it’s still well balanced with now bit old acidity. The palate has an overall heavy character with elements like anise and walnut taken over the once perhaps also present fruits.

Score: 4

Szeremley Kéknyelű, 2002. This one has a bright, in fact the brightest color of all four wines with greenish reflections. This wine, and please accept my apologies, but has a cat pee’s nose with veggie soup and lovage notes.  On the palate is very acidic, in a harsh and bitter way. With the firm structure in the middle, this small-bodied wine has ripe pear and crab apple elements and an unripe grapefruit note. Nice finish only messed up by the harsh bitterness.

Score:4-

Notes about the more recent vintages will come soon…

This is a crazy idea. Or is it! These two come from 200 kms away from each other but they’re thousands of virtual miles away from each other in terms of wine. But this time, this fact in a certain way helped me to put these wines into perspective.

Ráspi – Kékfrankos Selection, 2005

This Kékfrankos has a pale brownish color and the wine has a very quick move in the glass. And indeed, it’s thin and flimsy on the palate. The nose is spicy with salty-minerality. It has some cherry aroma on the finish. Its tannins are powdery. Give it some time (2 hours), and the wine will open a little bit more. But it’s a simple, although not a common wine.

Ráspi could break into the mainstream with this wine, if he wished, although on the lower shelves only.

Score: 4, 4+

Price: HUF 4 900

Bock – Cabernet Sauvignon, 2005

This Cabernet has got a lot of leather on the nose mingled with different farmyard elements.

On the palate, this full-bodied wine has a heavy dry tobacco character, lots of tobacco’s. Not the finest tobacco though. It breaks to the nose from the palate. The structure could be more firm, the tannins and extracts could be better integrated.

I used to get more excited about Bock’s Cabernet Sauvignons in the past. I think we both changed.

Score: 4+/5-

Price: HUF 3 400

I always liked this couple’s wines from Ostoros . To me, Orsolya wines are very fresh, acidic and fruity, mainly.

Well, this one’s called Tehéntánc (from 2006) which means “cow’s dance” and it is a blend of Kékfrankos, Cabernet Franc and Merlot so many people refer to this wine as the Bikavér of Orsolya Pince. Although it qualifies as a Bikavér, it’s different from what many people expect from an Egri Bikavér in many ways.

Medium-deep ruby color and as many Orsolya red wines, this one also has a lively move.

This cuvée has a fresh character on the nose and on the palate too. First the nose, with fruitiness of berry fruits and spices, with a mineral undertone and a smoky element.There are clear Kékfrankos and Cabernet Franc notes. Later an earl Grey tea note too.

Fresh and young, this wine’s palate has fresh, almost crispy acidity in sync with the unripe cherry and sour cherry aromas and a long, tart finish. This is a small-medium bodied wine, lean and firm, developing a pepper element on the palate with time. After about two hours the wine gets a better structure and a more friendly overall character with more ripe fruits and a better balance.

Score: 4+/5

Price: HUF 2 800

This Chardonnay from 2007 by Légli has medium golden color, very bright.

The bouquet is surprisingly simple: the fruitiness is virtually unnoticed and there’s an unpleasant note which first I suspected was an initial joke of sulphites. But it’s not much different on the palate: a chalky-mineral element there but little else. The nose will have a fading floral character after a while. In spite of the shortages the wine has a relatively good balance of acidity and residual sugar for it has little of both. But at least it has a good texture. This wine has a shockingly short finish and before that only a faded mix of crab apple and other unripe continental fruits to offer.

I expected more from someone who’s said to be a Chardonnay specialist. Something like a lighter version of the applauded Légli Landord, 2007.

Score: 4

Price:  HUF 2 200

After so many years Bikavér (or “Bulls Blood”) still brings bad memories of semi-dry, medium-bodied wines which is so unfair today, or at least partly. Today Bikavér is more and more a mid-range cuvée in the assortment of the wineries, a must-have piece if you were from Szekszárd or Egerand in many cases it’s no longer the “the blend of the leftover grapes” but a conceptually designed cuvée, often Bordeaux-styled one.

Now a Bikavér made of Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Kékfrankos, Zweigelt, Blauburger and Portugieser is a bit suspicious to say the least. In the Bolyki Egri Bikavér from 2005 you can find all of these in an undisclosed mix. I already complained about the inconsistent character of the Hungarian cuvées and I’m really curious about next (or previous’ ) year’s Bolyki Bikavér from a mix perspective.

The review

Medium deep ruby color with purplish reflections (actually it’s almost purple with ruby reflections). This Bikavér’s nose is pepper and spices, not intense and not fruity but pleasant and interesting. This is a medium-bodied wine with more than medium acidity supporting a dry, smoothly tannic texture. The palate has a distant red currant and unripe cherry aroma but it’s more or less empty with occasional Zweigelt-Kékfrankos-Portugieser elements.This little is well integrated, the wine has a relatively good although thin structure. Later there’s some berry fruit on the nose and the day after a bit of leather and tobacco , on the palate tobacco.

Score: 4-/4

Price: HUF 2 250

Most people believe that this award is too political. Several winemakers I spoke to think the same. My personal opinion is that it may be political but many of the winners have, at some point in their careers, deserved the title, for different reasons. Just take a look at the list:

1991 Tiffán Ede,1992 Báthori Tibor,1993 Vesztergombi Ferenc,1994 Gere Attila,1995 Thummerer Vilmos,1996 Polgár Zoltán,1997 Bock József, 1998 Gál Tibor,1999 Kamocsay Ákos,2000 Figula Mihály,2001 Szepsy István,2002 Malya Ernő,2003 Árvay János,2004 Takler Ferenc,2005 Vincze Béla,2006 Garamvári Vencel,2007 Frittmann János.

Did yo notice how every major region has a man of the year yet? And buy the way, not a single women.

You know, 2 Hungarians, 3 opinions. So don’t expect that Hungarians would agree with the list above. Anyway, we should at least challenge the judges of the “Hungarian Wine Academy”, won’t we?

I picked a mid-range red wine from a good vintage,  and this is what I found.

The review

Konyári – Loliense, 2006

Beautiful, lively deep ruby – cherry color. It has a move of a full-bodied wine but not oily.

The nose is perfectly ripe sour cherry and a little chocolate with a cherry accent, and a mineral undertone.

It’s tannins are still edgy but rather elegant, not the brutal harsh tannins which are often found in this segment. But there’s lot of it due to the Cabernet Sauvignon probably (and to 15 months in oak), although the wine as a whole has a rather Cabernet Franc-ish character, or at least, to a larger extent than the actual CF part would suggest (20%).

Unfortunately the fruity notes of the nose are almost absent on the palate and with time they almost completely disappear. But the wine has a nice body with good structure and nice texture, supported by sufficient acidity. The tannin backbone provides a stability that allows the wine to evolve over a couple of hours and further until the next day. Well balanced and it’s 13.5% alcohol passes unnoticed.

It’s an overall good wine, but for HUF 4 500 you can find better.

Score: 6- (/10)

Price: HUF 4 500 (EUR appr. 18)

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.

I’ve been hesitating lately whether or not to publish my tasting notes from my recent visit at Eszterbauer winery because of  the following reason. The wines and the owner of the winery himself were quite OK so I opened a bottle of Paternus cuvée and it was sour and obviously faulty. My second tentative was this Kadarka at home, carefully cooled and not decanted.

As the name (and label) of this particular wine indicates the Eszterbauer family has a long tradition in wine making having been involved in local affairs since for ever. The proofs are on the tasting room’s walls and on the wine labels as well. János Eszterbauer is a successful entrepreneur and self-made man, as he describes himself. The winemaking is actuall done by Pálinkás Laci.

The review

The nose carried the same strawberry jam and clove elements as when I tasted it few weeks ago with a cranberry undertone. Unfortunately the wine completely loses this character after only 90 minutes. Quite not surprisingly the small body and lack of acidity (tannins not even mentioned) wouldn’t help. No concentration either.

Score: 3+

Price: HUF 1 600

To tell the truth I enjoyed more the wines at the tasting on-site and Eszterbauer’s personality certainly helped. I didn’t regret the visit and only a little bit the money spent of wines that I brought home and re-tested. So below you’ll find my remaining notes from my visit at Eszterbauer.

Coming soon…