The winery Eszterbauer did it again ! They’ve managed to make a wine that is excellent in quality and extremely well priced.
This wine, what is it? The color is so strange to my readers outside Hungary, it is a “shade” between red and rosé. My first question was, is this siller? If not should it be drank cold or warm? After taking a closer look to the bottle it said dry red wine, yet I find this wine extremely good while drinking it cold, like a rosé.
As mentioned earlier in my blog, the Zweigelt grape is a harder grape to work with because it’s very sensitive like the Kadarka. If you make a single grape wine out of bad quality, under-/overripe Zweigelt then it will be very bad.
This is a “Újbor” translated it means “new wine”, after doing a bit of research on the name I came to the conclusion that it actually means the wine should be drank within half a year of it’s release. I think this wine will be good till the start of the summer.
This is not an ageing wine, if you buy it drink it soon !
The meaning of Cefrinkó, this is translated from the back of the bottle ” Cefrinkó is an old folklore expression, which meant lively,playful. It is also related to the word “Vinko” which was the name of the light, fruity wine. Aged wines are the top of the quality hierarchy, but after it’s born, the wine has such unique aromas, that our ancestors enjoyed it just as much as today’s consumer around the day of Márton.
Meaning of Márton nap/ St. Martin’s day : November 11th is St. Martin’s Day in Hungary (Márton nap), a traditional feast day celebrated by tasting the new wine and eating geese. This day falls right around the time when the geese born in the spring and early summer gain their necessary weight and are ready to be slaughtered. It is also the time when the first new wines are opened after the season’s grape harvest, making it a perfect pairing for the St. Martin’s Day festivities.
As mentioned above, the color is not common to your regular red or rosé wine. It’s very similar to siller wines. For those who do not know what a siller wine is I have good news, March and April are the siller months in Hungary and I will be writing a lot more about them in the next entries so make sure you come back !
The nose is clean and medium intense but full of fresh red fruits with a very sweet and pleasant strawberry dominance, there is some spice on the background but it’s rather minor. What I found very important is that the wine is not over cooled like champagne is. 10 degrees will do just fine, 5 is to low. The flavors will be gone and so will the smell.
The palate is low in acids, tannins has a light body. You can find red fruits again, strawberry, raspberry and a bit of cranberry with very tiny bit of spices like mild white pepper, and a short finish at the end.
This wine is perfect to drink on the terrace on its own, if you want that easy going drinking of a rosé wine with a bit more complexity of a fresh red wine then this is your pick ! This is for sale in Spar in Hungary for less than 900 HUF (3 euros). Keep in mind to drink it soon, this is not an ageing wine !
Also, if possible drink the wine within the day maximum two, the taste and flavors die off quickly.
As promised to some of my readers I would post what weather it is in Budapest, Hungary the moment I write the articles. I am sitting outside with the last glass of this wine, its probably around 20 degrees Celsius already.
Side information :
Winery : Eszterbauer
Region : Szekszárd, Hungary
Year : 2015
Type : Red, 100% Zweigelt
Price : 750 Hungarian forints, roughly 2.50 euros
Vineyards : Unknown
Where to buy : I bought it in Spar in Hungary, they have an amazing wine selection !
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