Hungarian Guest Wine Chataeu Vazsonyi Zweigelt 2012

This is only the second of the Hungarian wines I have but there are a lot more to come. In addition to all the drinking in Hungary I brought home another four bottles.

A dark, opaque red, the Zweigelt is very hot in the nose with hints of raspberry.

It's definitely a little hot. Not much for the tannins, nor is there a great deal of flavor beyond the initial taste of dark fruits, raspberry, and spice-maybe clove? What flavor there is though is nice enough. Goes pretty well with grilled meats.

It's definitely much better chilled a bit. I know you really should chill most wines (even reds!!) for 20 or more minutes before serving but usually I'm too impatient to do that. However my limited experience thus far with Hungarian wines makes me think that I'll want to take the time with the rest of the bottles I brought home.

Turkish Wine of the Week - Suvla Bigalı White 2014

Suvla has out a new series this year: Bigalı (running 19TL/bottle). I believe we've already covered the red so, in keeping with drinking more whites during the summer, it is time to discuss the white.

The Bigalı white is like a super blend combining Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon, Chardonnay, Roussanne, and Marsanne. I'm not even sure where to begin with all of them especially as I am completely unfamiliar with the latter two.

So with everything I don't know in mind...here we go.

The Bigalı 2014 White is straw gold in color.  The nose is very floral (unsurprising really with any of these grapes). On the palate it's floral, pear, fruity, and a bit buttery perhaps. It was a little on the bright (higher acid) side for my personal taste but wasn't at all astringent. It just really wanted to let us all know that it had its fair share of acid.

For me...not a huge win. And it really hurts me when I have to say that about a Suvla. To be fair, I am notoriously hard to please when it comes to dry whites. Even though it didn't win any medals with me I would still recommend it for being a solid white with a crazy reasonable price for Turkey.

Budapest Revisited

Twelve years ago I visited, not only Budapest, but Eastern Europe for the very first time. I hated it. I did not get why people liked Budapest so much. It did not help that it was still fracking winter and snowing and bitterly cold. Or that I was getting a little culture shocked from the Eastern European mindset, or that I couldn't speak the language.

Well I still can't speak the language (I'm sorry Hungarians but really?) and my German is actually worse now than it was 12 years ago but now I'm a lot more accustomed to being able to communicate without a firm grasp of the local language. Plus, a lovely, cool summer day makes just about any city enjoyable. So on the one day we had free from the travesty of a work event that had me stuck in Hungary I took a train into Budapest and enjoyed the day.

First up of course was Mass at Szt Istvan Bazilika. In Hungarian. Sigh. I miss Latin.

 

After Mass I met up with my colleague with whom I had taken the 7AM train into the city. We wandered a bit, had a drink a schmancy hotel near Saint Stephen's, and then saw this:

You can't really see it in this picture but it's a Georgian restaurant called Hachapuri!! A GEORGIAN RESTAURANT!!!! We had a moment of mind meld and headed straight for it without a word. Heaven. Pure heaven. We stayed there eating, drinking, and talking for about three hours...just long enough for all the grey clouds to disappear and the sun to come out!

We had those eggplant rolls with walnut paste (I can never remember what they're called: let's go with transcendent deliciousness), khachapouri ajari (the only khatchapouri in my book), mushroom khinkali, and beef/pork khinkali. And there was wine. Georgian wine! A lovely Rkatsiteli, perfect for a summer day.

After we pulled ourselves away from the Georgia restaurant (where I bought a bottle to go!) there was more wandering around.

While walking around we found the synagogue and I was reminded of how much I love this building. Sure I think Saint Stephen's is stunning (although the interior is a little too Byzantine for my taste), but the synagogue is stunning. The largest in Europe, it is over 150 years old and built in a Moorish style. Sadly we didn't have enough time to take the tour but maybe next time.

The train ride back to the middle of no where was a nice end to the day. I forget how much I love trains. We had a spectacular sunset to admire as we raced (well chugged along speedily I suppose) through the Hungarian countryside.

Between stalls at the festival and dutyfree I came home with a pretty decent haul: five bottles of Hungarian wine, one bottle of Georgian wine, one bottle of vodka, one bottle of rum, 3 pounds of brown sugar, and a giant pork sausage.

And Sherlock was almost as happy to see me as she was to play with the suitcase.

Guest Wine - Chateau Vazsonyi 2014 Royal Victoria

We're trying something a little different today! I was stuck in the middle of nowhere Hungary for work for a 10-day staff retreat...so naturally I was drinking. I was drinking a lot. It's been 12-ish years since I was in Hungary and I knew zero about wine then which means that Hungarian wine made no impression on me (sorry, dudes). However I was happy to learn on this trip! That was about the only ting I was happy to do on that trip...

The village where we were sequestered had a festival of Hungarianness. Although (as one venor explained to me) it was not Hungarianness that has always been Hungarian but things Hungairans have adopted which have, over time, become a "native" part of their culture. Perfect example: the paprika. Hungary and paprika are pretty synonymous but the paprika came to Hungary from the western hemisphere. That's a long intro to say there was a Biergarten-like place in the park: lots of wooden stalls with food and drink and tables between, all under the trees and charming villagey. The majority of the stalls are wineries so naturally I did all kinds of tasting. My first foray was to the Chateau Vazsonyi stall where a lovely girl and I discussed the merits of Hungarian wine in German. Well, she was speaking German, I was speaking some sort of weird mix of German and Turkish; Germish if you will. But I tasted and bought wines successfully so it was all good!

^That's my wine opener; it came in handy several times in Hungary. I travel with one. That's how I roll.

The Royal Victoria is a ruby red Cabernet Franc with a lovely nose of pepper, raspberry, and maybe cassis. It's a nice, medium bodied wine. Nothing particularly wow! about it but it's well-crafted and nicely drinkable. On the palate the tannins are noticeable without being overwhelming with low-ish acid. The main flavors drop off pretty quickly but the tannins linger. I'm not sure if it's odd or not but I found that the flavor was really more in the nose than on the palate.


The best part? The bottle cost about $8.75. I ended up on a little bit of a buying spree and bought four bottles from my friendly German-speaking wine adviser and had to ask her twice if she were sure that all four bottles only cost 10,000 HUF ($35). I told her that was what I would pay for one bottle of decent wine in Turkey. She was as horrified as I used to feel about that.


There will be more Hungarian wine!

Turkish Wine of the Week - Suvla 2014 Sauvignon Blanc-Semillon

I love the Suvla Sauvignon Blanc. Love. So when I was recommended the Sauvignon Blanc-Semillon blend I was only too happy to try it. I don't know much about Semillons and learning with Suvla is usually a safe bet, especially at 43TL a bottle.

Suvla's blend is very, very pale, almost colorless; but what it lacks in color it makes up for in the nose. Floral, peach, and grapefruit. On the palate I got a lot of butter but also peach, citrus, and a little mango I think.

Crisp, minerally, and with a long, clean finish this medium bodied white would pair nicely with medium spicy Asian foods, white fish, chicken, and rich cheeses.

I really wanted to love this one. White wines are not my thing so when I find one I really love I'm super happy. This was not one of those. I'm not saying it's bad, not by any means...but for me it hit closer to the 'meh' edge of the scale. I'll stick with Suvla's straight up Sauvignon Blanc.