Experimenting is the spice of life

However, Lajver is not only a producer of good and affordable wines, they are also great at limited quantity wines. We (hungarianwines.eu) have recently visited Lajver Wine Estate with the winners of our Hungarian WebWineWriting competition. The state-of-art winery building fascinated us, and so did the wines. Attila Nagy, the consultant winemaker and viticulturist of Lajver guided us around. Our first wine is called Incognito(2019), because it is a Kékfrankos ‘in incognito’ – black grape vinified into white wine. The idea belongs to Attila, therefore the label bears his signiture as well. Blanc de noir wines are sometimes clumsy and tannic, but Incognito is balanced and refreshing, great result of creativity!

Julia Scavo’s thoughts

The absolute winner of our Hungarian WebWineWriting contest, Julia Scavo, champion sommelier of Romania (2018), 7th best sommelier of the world (2019) and owner of Julia Scavo Formation Conseil was also with us at Lajver, read her thoughts on the wines. “High end technology, all by gravitation, the site is monumental. Vines are still young but potential is there. They also make some original wines such a Ménoir rosé and a Blanc de Noirs using Kekfrankos. Reds show a lot of fruit with ambitious oak maturing, that impacts the aromas with spices, toast and cocoa, but the wines are not over extracted and alcohol degrees tempt to be kept as digest as possible for this southern region. I enjoyed the Kekfrankos 2015 using an Austrian clone (A41) for this flagship grape of the area, showing its intense black fruit, red plums, spices, both varietals and from the oak, peppery, with fine herbal aromatics, dry but silky, with salivating elevated acidity, still moderate alcohol and juicy fruit complimented by the oak impact. Tannins are firm but not tight as one can find with this grape, as the vines will age the wine will become deeper, the potential is there and this can age 7-8 years. Infinity Cuvée 2016 à very good Bordeaux Blend reminds us of something of a Saint Emilion.”

More about Lajver Wine Estate

Congratulations to all the winners!

Why voting? Sometimes we are questioned about the reason for voting, saying that collecting votes is too easy. Well, a good online wine communicator should

a, write well (this is ensured in the first round thanks to the renowned wine professionals in the jury)

b, reach the readers online via all channels (this is ensured in the second round by voting).

We will shortly send an electronic badge to all winners and to all finalists.

Thank you for our jury members!

We would like to thank to our dearest jury member for the hard work of scoring all the articles.

Our jury members: Felicity Carter, Mónika Debreczeni, Dr. Ágnes Veszelszki, Ruma Singh, Tamlyn Currin, Thomas Brandl, Sergey Smolin, Davide Bortone, Lilla O’Connor, Richard Siddle, Pál Rókusfalvy, Tímea Tóth, Erzsébet Farkas, Dániel Ercsey, Zoltán Győrffy, Zsuzsa Toronyi, Tamás Dobos.

So who can taste the fabulous Mandolás?
It depends on the votes! Mandolás comes from Mandolas vineyards’ Cabernet Franc, presenting the most beautiful values of the terroir. The name ‘mandolas’ [in English: almond] refers to the almond trees grown there in the past.

“Almond tree grows where the noble grapes do. Its flowers symbolize spring, light and new-born life.”

Of course not only the winners, but all the other winelovers can taste this stunning wine, and the ideal place to do so is Vylyan Terrace, where the chef knows what to pair with the wines, and where the view enchants guests immediately.

Hungary is one of the safest countries regarding COVID-19, but before travelling, check reopen.europa.eu for the latest news.

More about Mandolás

Reserve your table at Vylyan Terrace

Read the finalist articles about Cabernet Franc and vote