If you're able to put down your glass of wine and come up from the cellar for a breath of fresh air, it's worth taking a look around the place where that great wine came from. You'd be in for a fantastic and uplifting experience. We went on the last weekend of October and were lucky enough to have perfect picture-taking weather, so the three of us men headed up the hill with cameras in hand into the thick of the vineyards. Here's what we produced: Gallery
This week's wine club focused on white wines that are available in Hunary for under five euros or 1350 forints. There are a surprisingly large number of wines to choose from, though most of the larger wineries were not represented because they did not carry wines within this price range. But everyone was able to find a bottle or two, most of which were very close to the price limit, but to our not-so-small surprise, we also found a wine for a third of the price that wasn't too shabby, as a matter of fact…
In the beginning of September, a guest of ours arrived from India, Dr. Yashoda Devi. She is a practicing doctor in India, as well as a wine consultant, judge, and brand ambassador for wine. Last year, she spent the harvest in Bordeaux at Château Malartic Lagravière winery and this year, she has come to visit us at Malatinszky Kúria, learning all the ins and outs of the winery. And why Villány, you ask? The answer it quite simple: our Cabernet Franc. …
Almost a month has passed since my last article and that just goes to show how busy the life of a wine maker is during harvest. Looking back on the past month, it was pretty intense. As I already mentioned, my colleague Béla and I set up camp on the grounds of the winery so we could save the time we spent getting to and from work. Instead, at the end of the day, we sat back and enjoyed a few rosé spritzers (I rather not disclose exactly how much our employee consumption was this month…) slapped some meat on the grill and quickly went to sleep for the few precious hours we had left before we would pick up where we left off not that long ago...
I've waited what seems like forever to get to this point. I began my wine making career in April at Malatinszky Kúria, and since then, I've been eagerly awaiting for the first batch of grapes to come in the winery so I can finally take part in the noble occupation of wine making from beginning to end. I was hoping this year would bring a good vintage, so I could be really proud of the wines we are making this year, in which there is a piece of my heart. So how has the '09 vintage turned out so far? ...
At one point in the beginning of the 90s, a few Croatians came together and figured: let’s plant some Malvazia grapes, revive our winemaking industry, make some olive oil too while we’re at it, put a strong marketing campaign behind the whole thing and tie all this together with tourism and great programs. Their plan seems to be working. Today, the Malvazia grape is as much a part of Istria as its beautiful beaches. It is a white grape variety originally from Cyprus or Crete. Before the philoxera crisis, supposedly 30,000 hectares of this grape were planted here. Over the past ten years, more and more of this grape has been planted, encouraged by grants and other forms of support. Apart from this, olive production has also received momentum and the glistening leaves of the olive trees can be seen throughout Istria. It’s obvious Croatians are on the right track and I give it only a few years, maybe a decade, before Istria will become synonymous with this wonderful grape variety. ...
In Pécs, everyone knows, if you want a good fish soup, go across the border to Csúza, Croatia. There at Kovács Csárda, they make the best fish soup anywhere. It is approximately fifty kilometers from Pécs, south of Mohács, not far from the banks of the river Danube. You can tell from its name that Csúza was once a part of Hungary. Their frish soup is always made to order
—you say for how many and you pick the type of fish. They also make their noodels fresh; their recipe starts like this: 4 kilograms of flour, 50 eggs, salt. In these parts, they serve noddles with the fish soup, not just with bread like elsewhere. So we had mildly hot fish soup with homemade noodles and a good Olaszrizling (Welschriesling) spritzer to go with it. It was on one of the these gastro tours that we discovered they make pretty good wine here in Croatia too! ...
Thanks Paulo, it was delicious! We have a friend who lives in southern Italy, in Bari. He visits Hungary regularly and, knowing how much we love wine, he often surprises us with wonderful wines from local wineries. He has excellent taste and his selection did not disappoint this time either. I’ll surely remember this wine for years to come. What a wonderful experience! We didn’t open this bottle right away, waiting for just the right occasion to open it, but of course, we didn’t (couldn’t) wait long. …
Last Thursday we finally held our much-awaited California wine tasting. This wine tasting was a few months in the making as our first attempt was crudely thwarted when the airline company didn’t approve of our just-wrap-it-in-a-sweater packaging, forcing us to give away all our precious bottles of wine to the very surprised taxi cab drivers and bus drivers of the Los Angeles airport.
But, as they say, many things are better the second time around, and so it was with the second set of wine we imported. We had two primary aims with this wine tasting: that the wines be really good wines and that as a set, they give a satisfyingly accurate picture of what California wines are like. That meant including a couple of whites and lesser-known varieties like the Zinfandel in addition to California’s fantastic full-bodied reds. The wine tasting turned out great, all the wines were exceptional and everyone found something they liked, but in the beginning, I had my doubts…
As you are leaving Napa, hugging the turns on the mountain road passing over into Sonoma county, a feeling of wistfulness comes over you. Beautifully kept vineyards, neat rows of vines, and in many places, traditionally cultivated rows of grapes. The vines, like a witch's hands, reach out from the ground up towards the sky. Colorful wild flowers carpet the ground between the rows; the vista is hilly and serene. Sonoma is family-run wineries, tasting rooms converted from old barns, heart-warming hospitality and excellent wine. Its seems almost odd that New World wine should come from such a traditional setting. The sight of its fifty and hundred year old vines is so alluring that I frequently pull over to the side of the road so I can take a closer look. …
