I quite like what the Bock crew brings out from Hungary’s native kadarka grape. With just a touch of oak this fragile variety becomes a bit more serious, yet does not lose its charm – being light and so drinkable.
The Mátra wine region is the neighbour of the more famous Eger in Northern Hungary and it’s somewhat similar in soils and climate. On the other hand it’s rather known for white wines, not reds, although long time ago it was mostly planted with kadarka, which is hard to find there these days. I know only two producers who bottle that variety, one of them is Anna Barta in Nagygombos.
After my recent rant on the ageability of Southern Rhone reds, this came as a reminder that I was probably too harsh. Here we have a humble supermarket villages wine – a so called “named” village, Seguret – which I bought many years ago for 6 Euros and which was hardly made to age this long (it’s over 6 years old now). Yet this is not declining at all, to my biggest surprise. I think it’s even better than after release!
Hungarian dry furmint can be challenging sometimes. We got a reminder of that in November, when our small wine club sat together to open a bunch of white wines (I only collected the furmints here). The most expensive turned out to be the least loved, and sadly no one was even surprised…
