Budapest Daily Review

I stopped by a major Hungarian wine retailer (for the 3rd time this week, I’d call this a trend) to find out there’s a fall sale going on so I had no choice, I bought a couple of selected items. This is the first one of them, originally picked to be paired with Indian meal but ended up as an aperitif.

Not being a huge Tramini fan myself (I’m not sure if Tramini or Zöldveltelini is the one I like less, Irsai Olivér’s certainly beating both, downwards) I thought this was a good choice and Györgykovács always made good, if not excellent Traminis in my opinion.

The nose is very clean, mostly gooseberry flower syrup. The palate is a well balanced mix of lovely acidity and dry extracts. The gooseberry comes thorugh into a mouthfilling, intense falvor of the same bush. There are elements of medicine and herbs too, mingled with a rather interesting thermal water appeal (well, to some, I suppose). Later a gentle acacia-flower-ish element too, which brings back childhood memories of sucking juice from the acacia flower as a kid. And this wine carries mineral lembrances of Somló as well, of course.

Technically, this wine is super. I wish I could appreciate it more.

Interestingly enough to me, the wine gets better as the glass warms up a little.

Score: 5+/6 (people not so distant from this grape would appreciate it more)

Price:

One note: the said retailer has a cool shop near Lánchíd where not even the clerks can ruin the experience. It’s unbelievable we had to wait 20 years to have this in Budapest.

I must admit I am not a regular festival visitor and I was surprised by the size of the Somló Tavasz festival: about a dozen twin kiosks, a hundred visitors and a huge tent describe well the scale of this event on the meadow on the outskirts of Somlóvásárhely. According to my winemaker friend, 40% of the visitors are regular festivalgoers who never miss one (hence the marketing value of the event is a bit questionable). All ages and all types of people were present: old ladies from the neighbouring villages sat in the tent quitely sipping their drinks while staring at the stage to check the appearance of a folklore dance group, there were families wandering around, kids riding horses, and some young folks trying to get a bit drunk. I really couldn’t spot any of the urban yuppies here who usually frequent these types of events. And no foreigners either.

It was charming and looked more like a big family reunion in a family where winemaking tradition’s got its roots from times when Juhfark was not yet recognised as a standalone grape.

Besides the local names (Györgykovács, Tornai, etc.) almost the same number of guest winemakers offered their wines, with few exceptions almost only from 2006 and 2005.

I really don’t think that festivals allow you to do some in-depth analysis of wine, it’s rather a quick scan of where are we standing and tasting unknown wines and trying to memorise those that you would like to try at home. So here are my notes, but since I did swallow all of these (at least in quantities of 1/2 dl) the objectivity is questionalbe. So I keep the order, I leave it to you what “filter” you apply to my judgement.