The best value summer red wine: Lajver Color Cuvée

What is the best summer wine like? It should be fruity, easy to drink and ideally pairs well with grilled dishes. Color Cuvée 2018 from Lajver Wine Estate in Szekszárd wine region has received the second most scores at the panel tasting of VinCE Magazine. The winner is Jackfall Winery from Villány with its Gesztenyés Portugieser 2018, but if we look at the prices, Lajver is the best value winner.
Gesztenyés: 16.45 points / 3890 HUF (around 10 euros), Color Cuvée 16.25 points / 1599 HUF (around 4.6 euros).

Color Cuvée is a blend of Kékfrankos, Merlot, Pinot Noir, Cabernet Franc, Kadarka, all varieties were fermented separately in stainless steel and blended after six months. “Good intensity on the nose with subtle spices and smoke, blackcurrant and forest fruits. Full bodied, balanced, juicy wine with refreshing acidity,lovely aromas of spices and ripened fruits. Perfect partner for grilled dishes.”

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

Julia Scavo

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