Kovács Nimród Monopole Blues Kékfrankos, 2015

John Clarke posted an article on www.independent.co.uk collecting 14 of the best wines from less known countries. As the winewriter points out, these countries are „having a moment”, Georgia, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Croatia and of course Hungary produces great wines, which are still overlooked. Clarke says: „They were treated as unwelcome attendees at the wine lover’s party – OK if you wanted a cheap bottle of plonk but never granted a place at the top table.

But now all that’s changed. With technology and know-how often imported from their Western neighbours, a whole range of top-quality wines are now available at prices that won’t break the bank”.

Get the Blues!

The first wine mentioned by John Clarke is a red wine from Hungary, Eger wine region. Kovács Nimród Monopole Blues Kékfrankos, 2015 is sold in Britain at 13.29 GBP, and as the writer emphasizes, a really good value for the money – in fact this wine is selected to be the Best Buy of the recommended wines. „A wine that’s named after a type of music has to have something going for it and this doesn’t disappoint. The Kovács Nimród vineyards in Hungary’s Eger wine region enjoy a similar climate to that of Burgundy and this rich red made from the local kékfrankos grape and aged for 22 months in oak has oodles of red berry and red fruit flavours combined with an earthy minerality. Goes well with cheese, pork or lamb.”

A man with vision and another with ambition

Kovács Nimród Winery is represented with another wine in this list (777 Monopole PinotNoir) and KNW is frequently mentioned among the gold medal winners of international wine competitions. The winery has just introduced their young, new winemaker, and fans of KNW do not need to worry: the future of the cellar is ensured for two reasons: the young man is an ambitious and experienced, talented winemaker, plus the owner, Nimród Kovács has such a strong vision of the winery, which will always keep KNW wines in the right path.

István Polyák, the new winemaker is only 30 years old now, but he has quite a lot of experience: he was born into a winemakeing family (his mother is a winemaker, his uncle has a winery, his grandparents had vineyards), he had worked 15 months in California, NapaValley– learning several totally different styles –, he had worked in Somló wine region for Tornai Winery – gaining experience in blending –, and he had worked in another winery in Eger, where he could learn how to think in a system.

„The best surprise is no suprise”

The above statement is explained by Nimród Kovács: if the consumer falls in love with a wine brand, the wine is obliged to carry the same characteristics all the time, because the costumer wants that very same style, not else. Well, Nimród and his new winemaker works hard to achieve this goal, so we strongly hope that those, who try KNW wines after reading The Independent, will fall in love with them, and it will be a long lasting relationship.