Dry Archives - Hungarianwines

Muscat, the graceful dry wine

Hungarianwines.eu — Thu, 07 May 2020 02:33:45 +0000

A beginner wine drinker usually starts with a member of the Muscat grape family – the fragrant, grapey aromas easily capture senses. Later, the more educated, especially the snobbish wine connoisseurs despise these aromatic wines, they consider them too easy, too simple. And in many cases they are right, but in careful hands Muscat can give refreshing, elegant, graceful wines with all the charming characteristics of the variety. Patricius Yellow Muscat from Tokaj is far from being flat and simple. “Enchanting elegant fruitiness, floral and herbs on the nose, the taste is characterized by minerality of the volcanic soil and crispy acidity. Perfect choice to refresh yourself on summer evenings.” The winery’s food pairing suggestion is prosciutto with sugar melon – an ultimate refreshness on hot May days!
The winery celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, hopefully soon not only virtually. (In Hungary life in the country is about to restart, terraces can open, soon life returns.)

More about Patricius Winery and its portfolio

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New Tokaj Dry by Zsirai Winery

Hungarianwines.eu — Fri, 24 Apr 2020 12:34:37 +0000

When the trend of dry wines of Tokaj wine region began, there was a hot debate whether to emphasise Furmint, the main grape variety (which is great indeed, but grown elsewhere as well, outside Tokaj) or just the word dry, to express the region’s capacity of producing stunning dry whites. The debate will never end, but meanwhile both initiatives seem to have their own merits. Zsirai Winery from the village of Mád is successful with their Furmint wines (read our latest article about Jancis Robinson’s top Furmint picks with Zsirai among the best ones), and now they have released their first Tokaj Dry. “We have been cherishing the idea of this wine for a long time: to show the virtues of both Furmint and Hárslevelű in one wine” – say the Zsirai sisters adding that vintage 2018 was an ideal one with plenty of crops. The blend is 70% Furmint and 30% Hárslevelű, and was matured in barrel for 9 months. Yellow fruits and floral notes on the nose, which appear on the palate as well. Fresh, vibrant, easy drinking wine with great acidity.

More about Zsirai Winery

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Dry Sauternes and Dry Tokaj – again a ‘different similarity’

Hungarianwines.eu — Tue, 27 Dec 2016 16:30:03 +0000

Humans love comparing. No matter what the topic is, we keep finding something familiar to place aside the new experience. Tokaj and Sauternes are two wine regions often compared to each other, though from the moment you understand the concept of terroir, you realize that comparing two unique terroirs does not make sense.

The same blessed infection

Tokaj wine region lies in the north-east of Hungary, whereas Sauternes is part of the world’s number one wine territory: Bordeaux. Tokaj’s main grape varieties are Furmint, Hárslevelű and Muscat Lunel, whereas Sauternes grows Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon. What is the common then? Both wine regions produce sweet wines with the help of noble rot, namely Botrytis Cinerea. If you ever happen to walk there at dawn in Sauternes, you will feel the soft humidity on your face from the river Le Ciron, the humidity that gives life to the important ‘infection’. In Tokaj rivers Tisza and Bodrog are responsible for the same Botrytis.

The same struggle against ‘fitness reality’

Once in Budapest there was a tasting of botrytised Sauternes and Tokaj wines. The organizers had wanted to taste them blind, but there was a strong opposition from Sauternes, thus finally the wines were tasted not blind and were well separated in the masterclass. The difference was obvious: these wines are simply impossible to compare! Tokaji Aszús with their high and firm acidity shone brightly in our opinion, maybe the French praised the luscious richness of the palate of Sauternes wines – we cannot make justice, but one thing is certain: these two appellations are both miraculous, both great, and nothing have in common apart from sweetness and botrytis. Except for their crisis of sales. We live in a sugar free world where calorie is the evil itself, therefore sweet wines are hard to sell. Obviously sweet wine producers want to make end meets and as a consequence they make compromises – and produce dry wines as well. In Tokaj dry Furmint wines were the first pioneers, then came other single varietal or blended wines, and even méthode traditionalle sparkling wines are becoming more and more common as we wrote last week.

Dry Sauternes is the next thing

As Britt Karlsson Sweedish wine writer (living in France) wrote in her BKWine online journal: ‘We do not drink enough sweet wines. I think many of you are like us. We like sweet wines and appreciate them a lot when we drink them, but these occasions are rare. Many sweet wine regions in the world struggle and now even the most famous of them all, Sauternes, is contemplating changes to keep up with modern times. The Sauternes appellation in Bordeaux produces only sweet wines and with very strict rules regarding yields. Many growers are very small and they find it hard to reach a profitable production.’

Britt Karlsson reported that the change is just about to be introduced: ‘Some time ago a discussion started in Sauternes concerning the possibility of creating a new appellation, a Sauternes Sec, that is dry sauternes. That debate is on hold at the moment but a new one has taken off instead. A report on the future of Sauternes that was published recently proposed the introduction of a new appellation called Coteaux du Sauternais. This would be a cheaper and easy drinking sauternes with higher permissible yield (45 hectolitres per hectare instead of 25) and lower sugar content. Nothing, however, is yet decided and many people will probably want to have a saying in the matter. After all, the risk of the Sauternes brand being impoverished is at stake. Read more: vitisphere.com’

Some great dry Tokaj wines

Lőcse Furmint 2013

Tokaj already has an existing regulations on dry wines, though debates rise here as well. An expert called Attila Fiáth argues that putting so much effort to make the grape Furmint famous is a mistake, because Furmint is not a registered trademark, not origin protected, it can be grown anywhere. And Hárslevelű grape is at least as exciting as Furmint, still it gets much less limelight. He claims that Dry Tokaj appellation would have made much more sense. Maybe he is right, maybe not, what we suggest is that you should try our great dry Tokaj whites and continue the discussion afterwards…

Béres Tokaji Sárgamuskotály, 2015

Béres Tokaji Naparany Cuvée, 2013

Patricius Tokaji Furmint, 2015

Patricius Tokaji Furmint Selection, 2015

Zsirai Tokaji Furmint, 2015

Zsirai Középhegy Furmint, 2015

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