Hungarian Wines for Super Bowl

I have 2 reasons for writing blog posts on consecutive days: one is that I had some catching up to, considering I’m attending another big tasting again this week (Gambero Rosso - Tre Bicchieri) and so I didn’t want to fall behind, and the other is that the wines I’m covering in this post were pretty awesome and I enjoyed them a lot.

But first I’ll tell you what I’m drinking right now - a German Silvaner.  Delicious, too.  It’s from Franken, so it comes in a cool bocksbeutel - a strange bottle that can be used in Franken, I’ve been told it looks like the Mateus bottle, it’s short and circular and almost flat - I’ve been seeing a bit more of them lately, and they’re fun.

Anyway we decided we’d have at least something with bubbles for the Super Bowl - the rest would just be fun.  So I thought a few Hungarian wines might be cool (channeling my inner Magyar).

The sparkling wine was the Torley Gala Sec, a dry style aromatic sparkling blanc made from Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Riesling, and a Hungarian grape called Kiralyleanyka, and demonstrating characteristics of soft white citrus, barely ripened peach, and fresh white petals - it’s clean and lovely and the bubbles are small and delicate.

The red I chose was the Kekfrankos (Blaufrankisch) by J&J Egar, also a delicious and unique wine, quite different from its Austrian Blaufrankisch counterpart - it’s very “red” in that it shows mostly red fruit, red berries, red plum skin, and most of all, a distinctive minerality, very stony and honest and expressive.  It’s medium bodied and satisfying and very clean and balanced.

I’d love to see more Hungarian wines become available on our shelves - they’re fascinating wines, I’ve never been dissatisfied with one yet.