This Bock Selection Kadarka 2012 was kindly sent to me by the winery – one of the last few remaining bottles, it never left the cellar. What an honour. I thought it would be just drinkable, but it’s a lot better than that – it is very good.

Clear signs of maturation, it has tertiary aromas but it developed classically, in a nice way. There is complexity to the nose, forest floor, dried cranberry and some bacon notes. It starts to mellow on the palate, round, yet with ample structure and quite good flavour intensity – reached the end of the plateau but not old or thinning. Absolutely enjoyable, 88 points. I guess it’s the oak aging which gave it the ageing capability (not common for kadarka) and the oak is perfectly integrated, hardly noticeable. What a statement for the variety.