I flipped the fuck out when I was asked to share an ‘interesting’ wine with a group of educated but mostly strangers last week. Not for lack of interesting wines on my shelf, but because I’d have preferred to share this with my favourite favourite wine friends. After a day tasting 100+ wines, it felt like a waste. But I, cheekily, squirrelled away 2 x sample bottles. AND, luckily, took home another glass left over in the bottle as everyone was suffering from an extreme case of tasting fatigue.

The Wine:

A gorgeous medium (+) nose of lemon peels, bruised apple skins, fresh slices of green apples, musky but tart apricots, distant pineapples, and fresh cider. These aromas expanded over the next 3 days - when I finally returned home to taste the wines in my usual antisocial isolation.

Dry-ish (6.1g/L RS), high luminous acidity, medium bodied, and a generous finish. Ripe apricots and peaches dusted in cinnamon, roasted pineapples, tinned pears, the richness of walnuts but also the bitterness of its skin, chamomile flowers, radicchio, fennel bulb bitterness that still has sweetness, my classic burnt sugar hollow bitterness, ripe blue oranges, and a generous length.

Viti + Vini:

The Furmint grapes are from the south facing, terraced, Csontos vineyard with its fertile brown forest top soil and slate rhyolite substrata - a combination of clay and volcanic soils. The vineyards are farmed organically and make up 1 of 5 vineyard sites managed by the couple, Judit and József Bodó, who make very small quantities of wines each year.

100% Furmint grapes undergo a slow ferment with  native yeasts and without temperature control in 220 litre used Hungarian oak barrels.

Final Thoughts:

It’s bloody delicious and so darned cool. I’m hopping mad that I chose to open it and share it with mostly strangers (thankfully there were a few friends who made it worth it). Call me mean...but these sorts of wines are meant to be shared with loved ones. The same way that this was shared as a gift by my beloved friend, @grzesiek.just.grzesiek , whose enthusiasm for this husband and wife winemaking couple has me fully invested in their wines and future.

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