wine
Mar 12 '10
The Ultimate Chef's Table (With Wine)
Hernyák Birtok in Etyek is like no other place I have been in Hungary. I was already plotting my return nearly as soon as I walked in the door, had my first sip of sauvignon blanc, and began chatting...
Feb 22 '10
New Culinary Gurus to Tackle Eternal Tokaj-Tikka Masala Mystery This Thursday in Budapest
Longtime readers may have wondered why we haven't seen more from our esteemed contributor Carolyn Bánfalvi. Well, in addition to all her various book projects and children, she and her husband/collaborator Gábor have also been busy with a new...
Feb 16 '10
Hungarian Winemakers Unable to Keep Concerns About New Marketing Agency Bottled
Many Hungarian winemakers are concerned that the Ft 1.3 billion (€4.8 million) collected over the past two years for a common marketing fund will not be spent wisely, index.hu reports. Following the collapse of the winemaker-created Magyar Bormarketing Nonprofit Kft...
Dec 08 '09
Hungary's New "Winemaker of the Year" Actually Deserves Award
After the recent scandals surrounding Hungary's 2005 "Winemaker of the Year" the people who give out the award must have been pretty darn careful about who they chose to give their gong to this time. So it's not a big...
Oct 14 '09
Grape Production Down 10%, 2009 Vintage Expected to be Excellent
This year's vintage promises to be excellent, but a 10% lower crop is expected than the average, said Head Secretary of the National Council of Wine Communities (HNT) Csaba Horváth. In 2009, 500,000 to 550,000 tons of grapes are expected...
Sep 08 '09
Five Days of Wine Haze at the Budapest Wine Festival
The biggest autumn wine festival in Budapest, the 18th International Budapest Wine Festival, will kick off tomorrow and run until Sunday and as in previous years, the event will be held at the Buda Castle with the participation of 250...
Jul 27 '09
Budapest Slams Gate on Annual "Wine Village" Festival
The annual "Wine Village" festival held every August next to Ötvenhatosok tere on the southwest edge of Budapest's Városliget (City Park) has apparently been canceled this year, making it not so annual. The problem, according to wine blog albertgazda.blog.hu,...
May 06 '09
And For Passover We Suggest a Nice White Hitler
We recently happened upon the above tableaux of gimmick wines in Budapest, which are made (or at least bottled) by a company called Vinália Kft. In addition to dry whites featuring the likenesses of German Kaiser Wilhelm, Jack Kennedy,...
Apr 03 '09
Trattoria Toscana to Liquidate L'Enoteca
As the ongoing recession bites further into the local gastronomy trade, it is interesting to see how different players are responding to the challenge. Some seem to be grimly holding on, hoping the whole thing will quickly blow over....
Mar 18 '09
Grandmasters of Wine (II): Why Every Hungarian Waiter Should Have Lunch at the Kempinski
Monday's post about the Bortársaság's "Wine Academy" reminded me to follow up on a related story I've been sitting on for a while. Back in January, I heard that the Kempinski Hotel Corvinus Budapest had just finished putting the...
Mar 16 '09
Grandmasters of Wine (I): Enrollment Underway for Bortársaság "Wine Academy"
When we reported earlier this month that our friends from the Bortársaság had been forced to close their lovely store in District V, we said it would at least give us Pest-types a good excuse to cross the river...
Mar 03 '09
Do a Bunch of Rank Amateurs Have Better Palates than the So-Called Experts? Maybe!
I've (finally) gotten my hands on the "ballots" from last month's debut Bitch, Moan and Wine Club/Chew.hu "Big Blind" tasting, which include the scores the participants gave to each of the eight Kékfrankos-based reds that were tasted. And as...
Mar 03 '09
District V Wine Lovers Weep as Bortársaság Booted From Basilica Store
How's this for bad wine news: The spiffy little Bortársaság wine shop that only recently set up shop right off of St. István tér around the corner from the Basilica has been closed. The official announcement of the closure says...
Feb 20 '09
Much-Maligned Bikavér Shines in Mixed Blind
Speaking of Bikavér-bashing, an interesting brouhaha recently broke out over a high-end version of Eger's most famous red made by Gróf Buttler. Setting it off was this post on Index.hu's Művelt Alkoholista blog, in which the writer wondered whether...
Feb 16 '09
Your Big Blind Hungarian Wine Date Awaits
It's been almost six months since the smashing debut of the Bitch, Moan and Wine Society, the shadowy (i.e. not website-enabled) tasting group/purchasing club spearheaded by "Treehugger" Dan Swartz of the eponymous bookstore/café chain and "Bottlehugger" Ben Frieday of...
Feb 04 '09
Blind Justice (II): Surprise Survivor Triumphs in Taste of Top '97s
While "blind" wine tastings may be the new rage among Hungarian wine fans, I and a small group of discriminating Budapest boozers have actually been doing them for years. I haven't ever written one up for the simple reason...
Feb 04 '09
Blind Justice (I): Bock Beckons, Beats Back Anti-Villány "Snobs"
Once the darling of Hungarian wines, wine snobs have turned against Villány recently - at least that's the general feeling at Művelt Alcoholista ("Erudite Alcoholic") and among the blog's army of commenters. They argue that not only are wines from...
Jan 14 '09
Television News Anchor Releases Book on 100 Best Hungarian Wines
The 2009 edition of television news anchor István Pálffy's guide to the 100 best Hungarian wines was recently released, deluxe.hu reports. The guide not only helps its readers choose a wine for under Ft 2000, but also adds which ones...
Nov 28 '08
Wine Society Celebrates New Location with New (Lower) Prices
Local winos have three reasons to rejoice today. First, a new Bortársaság shop has just opened up near the Chain bridge in Buda. Second, as the above teaser indicates, the retailer/wholesaler formerly known as the "Budapest Wine Society" is...
Nov 25 '08
Hungarian Wine Industry Pours Scorn on Heavy Metals Research
International reports, most notably in the Washington Post, that Hungarian wines contain unhealthy doses of heavy metals, including vanadium, copper, manganese, nickel, zinc, chromium and lead, have been rubbished by Hungarian winemakers in what seems like a typical knee-jerk reaction...
Nov 14 '08
Pannonhalma Abbey Turns Wine Into Vinegar (and More)
It's always nice to discover great new local products, but unfortunately it doesn't happen as often as I'd like it to. But recently I was delighted to discover that the Pannonhalma Archabbey (Pannonhalmi főapátság) - which also has a...
Sep 19 '08
These Tipsy Peasants Think You Don't Have the Nerve to Come to Tomorrow's Csákberény Wine Festival
And neither do I! But just in case you want to see what a real village wine festivals is like - as opposed to those fancy-pants things in Budapest - a good example will be taking place tomorrow from...
Sep 12 '08
Dark Clouds Threaten Hungary's Big Wine Festival, '08 Vintage
If you're in Budapest, you can probably see for yourself that the weather outside is not particularly cheery, and may have heard that the misery is expected to last pretty much all weekend. This puts us in a minor funk...
Sep 10 '08
Authorities Bust Counterfeit Wine Operation in Southern Hungary
Financial guards raided a wine bottling plant and caught wine counterfeiters in Soltvadkert, Bács-Kiskun County, at the end of last month, reports Vg.hu. A total of 36,000 liters of counterfeit wine, enough to fill a tanker truck, was seized. After...
Sep 01 '08
Hungary's Most Predictably Boring Wine Award Awarded
Wine buffs in the English-speaking world often refer to unexpectedly great bottles as "sleepers." But the other, more traditional use of the word "sleep" might be better employed to describe my reaction to the oh-so-predictable announcement last week that Vylyan...
Aug 08 '08
A Weekend Audience with the Man Who Would be King of Somló Hill
On a two-day visit to Somló recently we had meant to check out a few different wineries and give you a nice report on the wine trail in Hungary’s smallest, and possibly most picturesque, wine region. Sadly for you...
May 28 '08
Tokaj Wine Just Got Even Healthier
The important medicinal and therapeutic effects of Hungarian wine are old news, but few could ever imagine Tokaj's finest (pictured sliced above) would ever be made into anything other than the respected culinary accoutrement. Yet combining the two biggest...
Apr 25 '08
An Early Bite of Lake Balaton's Best
Although I've always liked Lake Balaton, I'm not much of a lake person. Even when I visit in summer, I never do more than stick my toes in the water. So on a recent weekend I discovered that the...
Jan 09 '08
The Hungarian Salami King of Illinois
Because of strict controls on the import of foods, Hungarians living in the US and Canada are starved of home-made Hungarian meat products, unless they can ask a friend or relative to play meat mule and smuggle their pungent...
Dec 14 '07
Top Wine Picks of Hungary's "Educated Alcoholics"
Our friends over at Index.hu wineblog Művelt Alkoholista ("The Educated Alcoholic") this week published a "list of lists" cataloguing seven of their editors/contributors' 10 favorite wines of the year. While such exercises are usually pretty boring, resulting in a...
Dec 03 '07
A Toast to Everyone Putting "Tokaj... Off the Beaten Track" on Track
Back in October we attended a refreshingly excellent culinary event in the dining room of the A38 Boat launching an interesting promotional campaign aimed at educating local and visiting gourmands and restaurateurs about the glories of Tokaj wines. Called...
Sep 26 '07
This Week's Wine Dinner War: Monarchia versus Páva versus Bortársaság
It seems that wine distributors and restaurants are waking up to the possibilities of the wine dinner as pioneered by Maligán and major countryside wineries, such as the excellent Thummerer Pincészet just outside Eger. The format is simple: a set...
Sep 07 '07
Hungarian Vintners, Festival Drinkers Whipsawed by Extreme Weather
As of sometime early this afternoon, the 16th Budapest International Wine and Champagne Festival - this year's biggest gathering in Hungary of winemakers, drinkers and hangers-on - was half-over. But we can't yet tell you how it's going, because...
Aug 16 '07
Court of Grape Fairy to Host Racy Christian Wine Blessing Also for Little Childrens Near to Historic Pesti Zoopark
We try to make a habit of not spoofing the often (unintentionally) hilarious English translations that regularly appear on food and wine-related Hungarian websites. But since the Budapest Tourism Office has probably eaten a million forints of our hard-earned...
Aug 13 '07
Heated Debate Over Impact of Heat on 2007 Vintage
After several months of unusually clear skies and record temperatures across Hungary, it is already certain that 2007 will turn out to be a vintage to remember. The question is whether the wines produced during this year of savage...
May 24 '07
Report Finds Hungarian "Pill Wine" Being Replaced by Other Headaches
Although use of the term tablettás bor (wine made from soluble tablets, rather than actual grapes) continues to be widespread in Hungary, the latest evidence suggests that this trick is a thing of the past, at least in Eger, reports...
May 22 '07
Szeremley Zeus Towers Over Other Hungarian Wine Gods in Int'l Competition
Journalists, sommeliers and winemakers who tasted and rated 5,460 different wines from 47 countries at the 2007 "Concours Mondial de Bruxelles" gave gongs to four Hungarian wines. According to gondola.hu, the Hungarian "team" presented 27 wines at the event, which...
Apr 03 '07
Desperately seeking Kadarka, and Other Educated Alcoholic News
In addition to our own first-hand research into the world of Hungarian food and wine, part of what we like to do here is act as a "filter" for the Hungarian-language media, highlighting some of the news and views...
