What is ’Szupermenta’?

The name itself is a pun, a joke on words. The tasting (or rather the examination) is conducted by NÉBIH, which is the regulatory body of food safety in Hungary. They take samples from the market, so it is absolutely reliable, the samples are not sent by the producers. Sample in Hungarian is ’minta’, and these samples are first examined in a laboratory, thus we can call them ’super’ proven. ’Menta’, which means mint and just a vowel away from minta sounds cool (in every aspect). The campaign by NÉBIH was launched in 2014, and its purpose is to improve food safety by informing both customers and producers. They have checked so far several things from pet food to ice cream shops at lake Balaton. They invite renowned experts (like Sándor Tóth great barista for coffee tasting or Bui Van Giang Vietnamese food chemist for rice examination) besides their professionals, and their examinations are always transparent, and as an additional benefit: they notify the producers so that they can increase their quality or act in case of deficiency. We complain regularly about our country and its regulatory bodies, but what we have found at Szupermenta website seems rather spectacular (the only question which remains is that how come that I have never received a single press release regarding their work?).

Kékfrankos Rosé tasting

Szupermenta examined 28 dry rosé wines, all made of Kékfrankos grape (at least 85%), and all of them are available in large supermarket chains. First they analysed the wines in laboratory, and thanks God none of them contains any artificial or natural colouring. As they say, the colours were also appropriate to the variety. No added sugar could be traced. The only deficiency they have found referred to the labels in three cases, for example one rosé had higher alcohol level than it claimed on the label. After the laboratory they have conducted a „normal” wine tasting as well, of which here are the three best wines:

1. Mátrai Kékfrankos Rosé, 2016, Molnár Winery, Mátra
2. Kékfrankos Rosé, Gedeon Estate, 2016, Kunság
3. Pannonhalmi Kékfrankos Rosé, Babarczi Winery, 2016

We ourselves have tasted Molnár Rosé, which is really nice and easy drinking, and we know Babarczi Rosé, which is great, too, so, from this tasting we can see that it might be interesting to take a look at Szupermenta page regularly.