Hello everyone, I would like to start with announcing that since last week me and Katalin Bujdosó work together!
Category: Szekszárd
Schieber Pincészet wine tasting
Tuesday I was invited by Hanna Kigyos of WineSofa for a private wine tasting in a wine bar called Andante Borpatika (the last word meaning wine pharmacy). The wines we tasted that afternoon were made by Schieber Pincészet a winery established in 1978 as a family enterprise in the sunny wine region Szekszárd.
Kékfrankos tasting by Wonderfultasting
What a blast this tasting was ! The guests and friends were just awesome to spend time with ! We had great weather until about 18:00 when it started to rain lightly, luckily enough we were protected from the rain on my terrace.
We had dozen of snacks, including some real French goat cheeses, salami and freshly made pastries with delicious fillings made by our guests.
The tasting :
Dúzsi Tamás kékfrankos rosé 2015 : A must have rosé if you are talking about kékfrankos, Dúzsi is famous across whole Hungary for his rosé made out of kékfrankos.
Medium intense clean nose with red fruits, the same goes for the flavor. It’s an easy drinking wine with balanced acids and alcohol.
Tank fermentation only.
My score :85, your typical rosé with a fruity twist.
Sabar Kékfrankos 2014 : My first encounter with a rosé that was older than one vintage. As said in previous articles, Sabar proved its very much possible to make a rosé that can stay in bottle for a bit.
Medium intense clean nose, with minerals and red fruits. It is my opinion that the mineral soil of the region is very much reflecting in the flavor, which makes this rosé very unique. Good balance in acids and alcohol. Tank fermented wine.
My score : 85 as well, completely different wine from the first tho, in some sense a bit more complex.
Eszterbauer Kékfrankos rosé 2014 : Another great wine made by Eszterbauer, Örom means joy in Hungarian. On the label you can see the grandparents of János Esterbauer (the winery owner) they are full of joy after a successful harvest.
Medium intense clean nose, with spices, dark cherry, raspberry and minerals. The wine was well balanced on the tongue and represented minerals, raspberry and dark cherry. Medium finish. Would fit sea fish very well in my opinion. Tank fermented wine.
My Score: 80, I think it lost a bit of its touch in the bottle.
Heimann Fuxli Siller 2014 : This siller is not made out of pure kékfrankos, but it’s a cuvée of Portugieser, Kadarka and Kékfrankos. For many of my guests this is something completely strange or new because its color. The color is something in between red and rosé, depending on the maker it hangs more to the on or the other. It can also be more fruity or more spicy.
Siller was originally made by kadarka. one to two days after the harvest, they removed some of the liquid must in the fermentation to increase the skin ratio and give this darker then rose but lighter then red colour. Today the use different grapes but with the same method.
Medium + intensive clean nose; with spices with red fruits tart. The wine was from 2014 and it is in my opinion that siller gains a lot of elegance by sitting in the bottle for at least 6 months. The alcohol and acids were very balanced and there were light tannins on the background. Bit of pepper, cloves and raspberry tart on the tongue. Medium long finish.
Fitted perfect with our roquefort.
My score : 86, this was really my style of wine and I think was well balanced.
Pfneiszl Kékfrankos 2013 : The first of three reds, a light one but a great next level after the siller. This wine was picked last minute after I wasn’t satisfied with my previous pick. I unfortunately know almost nothing about the winery, but their wines are definitely worth mentioning and got my attention when I tried of their cuvées on new years evening two years ago.
Medium intensive clean nose, young red fruits like raspberry, strawberry and bit of sour cherry, you can also detect a bit of minerals in the nose. Good balance again in acids and alcohol with light tannins, the flavor is light to medium intense and it brings back those red fruits with a bit of minerals and cinnamon. Easy drinking wine that you could enjoy on its own as well.
Orsolya Pince Kékfrankos 2013 : A kékfrankos from one of my favorite wineries in Hungary and the absolute winner of the tasting. This wine only showed part of it’s great potential and will only get better in the next years, said this I feel extremely satisfied I bought more of it to let it age. 2013 was a great year for red wines, they had very ripe fruits they got 450 liters out of 0,4 hectares. Was aged in two barrles of 225 liters, one was a new Hungarian barrel medium toasted and the other one was a used barrel. Aged for almost two years. I tasted this wine roughly 4 months before bottling and it already was showing potential but had to stay in just a bit longer.
Clean and medium + intensive nose and deep ruby color, dark cherry’s and raspberry tarts, marzipan and spices. The acids, alcohol and tannins are in perfect harmony already and on the tongue its like eating one of my favorite red fruit marzipan cakes, an absolute killer wine ! My guests were asking where the steak was that fitted with this ! The finish was medium to long and the marzipan stayed with you for quite some time.
My score : 92 with great potential to become an extremely good wine.
Weninger (Burgenland) Kirchholz Alte Reben Blaufränkisch 2013 : My surprise wine for my guests, a kékfrankos from just across the border. Weninger is famous for his great kékfrankos from Sopron in Hungary, what some don’t know is that they also have a winery just across the border in Burgenland. The elder Franz Weninger takes care of the winery there, a delightful man to talk to as well ! This Blaufränkisch was up for tasting in lasts year Mitiszol a tasting for bio dynamic wines. This is a single vineyard wine, the vines are over 40 years old. It was hand harvested, and aged in 500 liter barrels after two weeks of maceration, spontaneous fermentation. Was bottled in march 2015 and there were only 5800 bottles. The Kirchholz vineyard top layer is interspersed up to half a meter with sandy pebbles and partly mixed with coarse gravel. The subsoil resembles clay and loam.
A clean and medium + intensive nose with hints of nature (leafs, grass, hay) some sour cherry, ripe raspberry and tobacco. Well balanced alcohol and acids with elegant tannins, very ripe red fruits with dark cherry, prunes and tobacco (was just like a smoked a cigar). An excellent wine and was my personal favorite together with the Orsolya Pince.
My score : 92, I can only imagine how this wine will be with a bit of more ageing in the bottle.
A special thank you to everyone that attended this awesome tasting, next month we are organizing a vertical tasting of Orsolya Pince – Olaszrizling. PM me on social media or send me a mail if you would like to attend.
Eszterbauer – Cefrinkó újbor Zweigelt 2015
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 !
