New Tokaji Rising

Tokaji is undoubtedly the best known of Hungary's wine regions, and it has also seen the most international investment and interest. The communist era was particularly painful for Tokaj, with well regarded vineyards on the steeper slopes being abandoned due to difficulties working them mechanically and the rest of the vineyards being adapted to 4 metre wide rows to accommodate the Soviet tractors. The communal farm units were producing wines of low quality designed to satisfy the eastern bloc markets and quality was a word that quietly lost and concept or meaning. The fall of communism allowed the more forward thinking members of the cooperatives to lay the foundations for a rebirth, people like Andras Bajo, who successfully transformed his cooperative into the Oremus winery, complete with the cream of the older vintages, and a desire to go back to what he believed Tokaji was before it had been so thoroughly debased. Hugh Johnson, the British wine writer corralled a group of investors to create the Royal Tokaji winery and AXA Millesimes, the wine branch of the French investment company arrived to create Disnoko, bringing with them the belief that Tokaji could be made in a different style. That it didn't have to be oxidised and nutty when young, that it could be fresh and extremely fruity at birth with the understanding, born of long experience in Sauternes, that the complex tertiary aromas of age would indeed arrive with age.

The ten years or so following the new wave of investment brought bitter arguments over what people though was the soul of Tokaji, long evenings were spent debating whether the Aszu berries should be macerated in must, in freshly made wine or wine of the previous vintage. All this while money kept on being poured in, and now a visit to Tokaj will find any number of dazzling high tech wineries. Patricius, currently heading the Renaissance group and financed entirely domestically, Beres, Alana, and Pajoz. But this wasn't to be the end of the changes.

Andras Bajo had envisaged Oremus as being like a Bordeaux Chateau, releasing a grand vin, followed by a decending ladder of second wines. However, due to the scattered nature of the Tokaj vineyards and the piecemeal ownership of land, the analogy that suits them best is of a Burgundian negotiant in the early 20^th century and indeed the big boys do buy a lot of grapes, they couldn't do otherwise.

Back in Mad, Istvan Szepsy was working away, possessed of an inherent curiosity and a genius for wine making, he became the lightning rod around which progressive ideas fomented. The Mad boys as they became known were looking at the soils, thinking tirelessly about where they wanted their wines to be going. Wine makers such as Gabor Oroz and Samuel Tinon, both making small amounts of extremely high quality Aszus had found their feet and their niches. Up in Abaujaszanto Marto Wille-Baumkauff was tending to her beautiful hillside vines, initially going organic and then later fully biodynamic, her concept of Tokaji production was resolutely against the grain, minimal intervention with natural yeast and a definite aim of letting the terroir speak for iteslf.

What she was doing didn't go unnoticed and she is now a member of the Tokaji Bormivelok Tarsasaga (Tokaj company of wine producers, though in a very archaic agricultural sort of way, I guess it resonates if you're one of the 12 people who speak Hungarian outside of the country, but never the less it's very catchy, rolling off the tongue nice Szamorodni, or not). They were showing a selection of their dry wines at the wine festival. A large and detailed vineyard map showing all the crus set out their intentions. All their wines are single vineyard bottlings, and to anyone au fait with the more natural end of French wine making will make perfect sense.

Furmints:

Karadi-Berger, Palandor 08 – This is from a cru (Palandor) vineyard quite close to the town of Olaszliska, the terroir is decomposed slate and it shows a vibrant nose of slightly lifted (bit volatile) pears and ripe quince, the palette had a sort of electrified acidity with loads of pear fruit.

Bott, Csondos 08 – The Csondos cru is on the next hill side north and east of Palandor and has much more volcanic soil. The nose is very mineral with some apricot notes, on the palette there is a hint of something herbal, but this is all about the minerality.

Kiss Janos, Nagy Palant 08 – As if to emphasise how small scale some of these wines are, this is one of 1199 bottles produced, the cru is close to Bodrogkisfalud and has cold brown forest soils and rhyolitic tufa, a wild yeast ferment was folloowed by 18 months in large old oak, 12 of which were on the fine lees. A slighly stalky nose with bitter citrus accents led onto a rich and powerful palette, though I felt the alcohol was a bit evident.

Az Nektar Pince, Vioka 08 – This was one of two wines from Sátoraljaújhely (pronounced shat a rye you ee hay, for those that don't speak Magyar), a town in the northern part of the region just before the Slovakian boarder. The cru is one of the higher in Tokaj at 390 metres from sea level, again the soils are volcanic. This had a slightly lifted appley nose with some nice dill like herbal notes, a small amount of residual sugar gave the prominent acidity a little bit of padding. I though it was excellent.

Doragy, Elohegy 08 – A cru very close to the town of Tarcal, this had a lovely smoky, savoury almost salty nose, on the palette apple and pear fruits dominated, again excellent.

Erzsebet Pince, Zafir dulo 08 – This is from the cru next to Mezes-Maly (owned by Grof Degenfeld and Royal Tokaji who make a single vineyard Aszu from it), it's in between the towns of Tokaj and Mad. It's a blend of 66% FurmintThe wine was showing pear and white flowers, very fruity on the palette it finished with a nice leesy earthiness.

Harslevulu:

Tokaji Nobilis, Hars 08 – From the cru of Barakonyi dulo outside the village of Bodrogkeresztur. Tokaji Nobilis is the winery of Bardos Sarolta (surnames come first in Hungarian), who is the wife of Peter Molnar, president of Tokaji Renaissance and head of Patricius. The wine shows lovely honeyed white flowers with a steely mineral heart.

Kikelet, Lonyai dulo 09 – From just outside of Tarcal, this is a very fresh citrus dominated HVLU with apples, lime and some perfumed white pepper notes.

Az Nektar, Kacsard 09 – Again from the north of the region near Sátoraljaújhely this is slightly off dry and showed creamy pears, some floral notes and a nicely mineral finish.

Finally Pendits Dry Muscat from near to Abaujszanto. As mentioned earler Marta Wille-Baumfauff is one of the regions most interesting personalities, the first wine grower to be certified organic and now biodynamic, she passionately loves her vines and seems to be forever restless always looking for new ways to help the region and her fellow growers. Her Muscat is very different from the norm, always showing a sort of sweaty florality, but matched to a medium bodied palette with excellent length. What is so lovely about it is that if you taste the grapes, then the must followed by a couple of vintages, it is clear that there is a real consistency of flavour capture. Well worth seeking out.

For me this was a real eye opener of a tasting, showing that outside of the larger growers and houses there is a real groundswell of smaller producers who are making dry wines that really speak of the crus from whence they come. Sadly over a very wet weekend in Budapest it is clear that 2010 is going to be a terrible vintage, with growers telling me that mildew has ripped through the vineyards far faster than they can spray to combat it. Obviously for those that are organic this is even more of a problem. Yields will undoubtedly be very much down from previous years with some crus not producing anything. For the larger houses I doubt this will be a huge problem as many have large stocks of wine and good funding, but I fear greatly for the smaller growers as a year like this will no doubt put great strain on finances. Fingers crossed and they'll all survive, as it would be a tragedy if the hail of the early summer and the rain that has finished it damaged this beautiful flowering of individuality.

A liquid Tractatus

You know that friend who's just difficult over dinner, who complains that the youthful premier cru Chablis you've served is just too damn fruity, and that Rheingau Kabinett is frankly a bit flabby for his liking. Well don't worry, the answer you've been looking for is right here!

Sömlo. It's a minuscule region in the North West of Hungary, an isolated couple of volcanic hills that sit pretty much alone in an expanse of flat plain. Sömlo is pretty much entirely a white wine region (with one notable exception, which I'll come to later), and it's wines are characterised by a searingly direct minerality. Tasting the wines of Kalonics Karoly with their wine maker Karoly was an exercise in intellectual tasting. They don't really do opulence, in fact they don't really do anything other than just let their very low yields and careful stewardship of the terroir go straight into the bottle. They have plantings of the four main grape varietals Olaszriesling, Furmint, Harslevulu and Juhfark. We started with a mini vertical of the Olaszrisling, the 06 being restrained with a slightly leesy minerality, the bottle age had added a slight creaminess the to palette and there was a bitter almond finish that's quite characteristic of the varietal. The 08 was fresher with a slightly vegetal green bean and slatey nose and a slightly herbal green bean like character on the palette, again there was a core of minerally acidity that drove straight through the wine like an aggressive piece of crossing out. For the 09's they presented tree different barrel selections. Nor folk for following the crowd their three barrels are old 1000 litre Acacia wood that had been taken apart, the tartaric acid deposits scraped off and then re-toasted with increasing increments. However even the highest toast was quite low by others standards, as Karloy gnomically put it, “What are we looking at? God or his clothing?”. Szent Tomas Olasz 09 (oh and the barrels are all named after famous Hungarian kings, though obviously you spotted that straight away...) was giving very little, minerals, slate, the barest hint of something herbal, then a searingly mineral palette, like tasting a shadow play of slate and razors. The Bela III was my favourite of the three, the slightly higher toasting seemed to coax a degree of fruitiness from the wine, with notes of stone fruits and apricot, white flowers and fresh runner beans, whilst on the palette the minerally core was wrapped with a creaminess that mitigted the austerity of the terroir. A bit like listening to Chopin whilst reading Wittgenstein. Finally the Bela IV with the highest toasting, this confused me somewhat as the apricot fruit had me thinking of Furmint, but the salt caramel and white pepper threw me slightly. Again it showed the same steeliness of structure but with more fruit evident.

We then moved onto the Juhfarks, now I don't think that Juhfark is going to be a worldwide superstar of a varietal, but in Somlo it does have it's place, it's a wine that really shows off the poor volcanic soils. If that sounds like an euphemism for lean, acidic and devoid of fruit, then maybe, but they're certainly interesting. The 07 had a mineral and wet wool nose, with some sticky tangerine zest characters on the palette, the 08 was all about flintiness, with the fruit being a little curmudgeonly and refusing to come out. The 09, which hadn't long been bottled, was a little reductive, but still showing some slightly stalky mineral notes along with a fresh and orangy citrus peel character in the mouth.

The 09 Furmint, which again had just been bottled, was being truculent, but from having tasted previous vintages, I know that it tends to a very lean and mineral expression of the grape, with pear and quince characters rather than the riper stone fruits of the Tokaj wines.

Finally the Harslevulu's, these were the stars of the tasting. The 07 showing preserved lemon peel, wet stone, white flowers and a hint of pear, whilst the palette was a shock of powerful leesy minerals, rounded off with an incredible length, intensity and a finish of white flowers, bread and pears. The 09 (there was no 08 on show as someone had tasted it at the winery and bough the whole vintages production) was all lemon zest, Hawthorne flowers, and something almost akin to mint, then a supremely fresh minerality and a finish bursting with citrus peel.

The Kolonics Karoly wines might not be for everyone, certainly their high acidity and mineral like extract would put off someone looking for an amenable fruity white, however I found myself increasingly impressed by their determination to show off the soils of Somlo and the intellectual pleasure of working them out on the palette.

And I that's not enough you can have some juvenile tittering by making jokes about Kolonic irrigation.

Pierre Moncuit

Arriving slightly late in the day at the house of Moncuit was slightly frustrating as they were one of houses that I was most looking forward to visiting. However lunch was at the Chateau de la Marquetterie with the garrulous Clovis Taittinger, and in my experience lunches are things that are best not planned too closely around.

Moncuit is in the village of Mesnil Sur Oger, which is Grand Cru and pretty much exclusively Chardonnay. The house is presided over by Nicole and Yves Moncuit, who we unfortunately didn't get the chance to meet (again, due to our tight scheduling and trying to get 3 extra visits into a short two day period). However we were very well looked after by a very cheery lady who took us through their wines and then on the obligatory tour of the cellars.

The house makes exclusively Blanc de Blanc which with the exception of the Huges de Coulmet are all Grand Cru.

Huges de Coulmet, this is from a single plot in the village of Cezannes which has particularly sandy soils, it's an NV and showed quite a simple nose of fresh green apples and just a touch of brioche.

The wines took a leap forward in quality when we moved onto the Grand Crus, Pierre-Moncuit Delos NV GC BdB, this showed a lovely mineral and floral nose, which opened up to show a vibrant minerally palette with notes of peach and stone fruit giving roundness.

Millesime 2004, this has been treated to five years of bottle ageing sur lie and it really shows. Again that same creamy mineral core, but this time it's swaddled with a panoply of creamy, toasty, caramel and yeasty bread flavours, on the palette the nose still shows but one also finds some toasted hazelnut characters too. This was serious champagne, direct, slightly restrained but very complete with it.

2002 Extra Brut, coming with only 3g per l dosage (compared to the usual 10) this was very direct but boasted some hints of mushroom, toasted wholemeal bread along with the shimmering mineral core.

The Moncuit rose is made by blending in Pinot Noir from Ambonnay, but this is still quite a small percentage so the wine remains predominantly Chardonnay. The nose was redolent of dusty white bloomers, but with an edge of red fruit compote, this is very much towards the more elegant end of roses and has a delicate poise that was a joy to taste.

Finally the Nicole Moncuit 2002, this is their top cuvee and is made from 90 year old vines. In keeping with the rest of the houses wines this was very elegant, with notes of farmhouse brown bread, some dried peach and apple compote characters.

The Moncuit wines are of a family and it's very satisfying to see the relationship between them, there is a shimmering minerality that weaves its way through the wines, with age and cellar time just adding complexity and sensuality to the wines. Rather like the way a silken black dress hangs on a beautiful lithe ladies body.

Our visit to Moncuit was somewhat brief, however I was very impressed by the consistency across their range of wines, there's a real familial trait that shows in all of their wines, an elegance in the way that they present themselves. The Chardonnay showing real minerality, but not in an austere fashion, a delicacy of character, but also one that is happy in it's own skin, none of the wines ever left me looking for something else, they all came across as being very complete.

Going travelling - blog mission statement

Blog goals and topics to cover:

(this might not follow perfectly as it's more a series of notes pertaining to things that I wnat to look into, obviously if other topics appear which I deem as very coverable I'll get stuck into covering them)

Wine

The effect of various terroirs on the wines grown on them.

Here I want to categorise various wineries according to the predominant philosophy of the wine makers, in an attempt to view the wines produced from them in the context of the peers in wine making terms. For instance natural or low sulphur wines should be thought of in the context of their peers, as would wines made with long hang time and lots of new oak.

Basic breakdown of a winery blog post:

Human interest part of the story, or something that makes it readable.

Tasting notes and a breakdown of the wines style etc.

Then an addendum that lists the soil types, wine making tech and so forth.

All this to be scrupulously tagged and interlinked.

Section of Australian terroir, with photographic examples of soil types, and a quite detailed breakdown of weather patterns etc.

Standard list of questions to put to the winemakers:

Yeasts

Oak

Place of study and their winemaking heroes

Choice of varietal and justification behind it – including a discussion of how the varietal interacts with the terroir in place

What makes them unique and interesting

Views on technology and espousal of it

Business model as applicable to wine production – e.g Grange Hermitage is more of a bdx style where as Hill of Grace could be marked down as Burgundian – essentially as discussion over the primacy of brand or terroir.

Food

Narrative interplay between the food and wine matches, and the cultural positioning and preconceptions that influence the success or otherwise of the aforementioned matches.

Trace a basic food history of the areas that I visit and try and partake in the local food customs – in Australia look at how the foods etc have been influenced by the successive waves of immigration.

Towpath Cafe Hackney

Inexplicably I'm feeling somewhat sad at the prospect of my final shift at Le Breton this evening. Having given it quite a lot of thought my only expanation is that I was more attached to the place than I realised. We've certainly gone through quite a lot together.

Still it's a new day and I'm off to meet my friend Tracy at the Towpath cafe in Hackney (well if this train ever actually starts to move).

The Towpath is my friend Amanda's little place (there might be others involved but I don't really care), and it's a treat, nestled on the side of Hackney canal.

Amanda popped her head round the corner and said hello - strangely enough t was both of our last days at work - she's doing a modicum of travelling (well having a holiday) and I'm looking at a serious chunk of the year off....

Still the Towpath is a great little venue. Initially there was ust the selection of cakes and breakfast stuff on the menu, but the selection improved massively when the lunch menu came up.

I plumped for lardo on toast with radishes and cherry tomatoes and a bowl of poached chicken salad, while Tracy stayed in extremelycomfortable territory with a toasted cheese and spring onion salad. Home made lemonade and a couple of glasses of house wine sorted the liquid part.

Everything about the towpath cafe is great; the salad was beautifully dressed and extremely fresh, the lardo was an unusual thing to find on the menu and was spiced and mouthfilling in the best sort of way. Confirming my assertion that there isn't much that isn't improved by pig fat..

Lunch was rounded off by a a natural (no sulpur) Sangiovese from Tuscany and a portion of yoghurt and pistacio cake. Then it started raining, proper raining, rain with intent and purpose. So we sat still and carried on chatting until it cleared. Which I guess sums up the highs and lows of the the cafe, lovely food, but you're more than a little bit exposed, a bit of wind or a lot of rain all make themselves felt quite forcefully.

Terroir and it's expressions

True expression of terroir, this seems to be one of the overriding goals of modern wine makers. Everywhere I go I hear people extolling it as the virtue towards which they strive. But what really enables people to percieve the subtle and miniscule differences between vineyards and between years.

Well I'm going to make a contreversial suggestion; a level playing field.

Australian and new world winemakers making their first forays into the Rhone valley were renowned for dismissing everything they tasted as being smothered by brett. The locals to whom a small amount of brett was pretty normal found this odd as they could see beyond it.

Afficianados of natural wines claim that their no sulphur wines with their oxidative notes slightly variable levels of volatility are truer expressions of the places where they're grown.

Wine makers in California trumpet the exact block of the vineyard despite leaving the vines to hang till the point of partial raisination and then use 100% new oak to fill out the gaps in the palette.

Who's right and who's fooling themselves? I'm going to contend that both and neither are. I think our palettes grow to disregard certain ever present influences and tastes, jut look at the way even the est chefs can develop a tolerance for salt in their food, leading what they regard to be a perfectly seasoned dish to taste excessively salty to someone else.

For abstract elements of terroir to really be percieved, you have to have a contineuom of winemaking style. Do you relly think that when the Burgundian vineyards were being mapped out by the Cistercian monks there was much diversity in winemaking, yep, it was almost certainly across the board rubbish, but at least each clos' wine was being ruined in the same ways.

The mid 20th century Bordeaux wines were all (with a few exceptions) being made to a certain formula, this allowed a generation of wine merchants and writers to learn the intricacies of the different communes. Now try to explain the relative merits of Margaux and St Julien when you've got Chateau Lascombes and Langoa Barton as your examples, one that's happy to show a refined and elegent frontage, the other that has been taking almost as many steroids as your average tour de france cyclist (not wanting to disparage Lascombes which I like a lot, but it doesn't half muddy the water in a comparison).

Does tasting Clos de Coulee de Serrant give a person any sort of idea about what the terroir is capable of. Yes and no, it's such a distinctive wine that I've seen people taste it and mistake a hell of a lot of the winemaking (or lack therof) influence as being related to the terroir. Show these same people any number of natural or minimal intervention wines (again many of which I love) and the inference will be that they show an incredible transparancy of terroir. The don't. No more than any wine made carefully with minimal sulphur, maximum hygene, stainless steel and a focus on truly reflecting the fruit character of the vineyards. Take a comparative tasting of the single block wines from St Claire in New Zealand if you want proof.

So now can people stop banging the drum about how their particular niche of winemaking preference is truer, and admit that whatever latent luddite sympathies might be informing their decisions are all well and good, at least as well and good as whatever avaricious inclinations drive people to 100% new high toast oak in persuit of high points.

The world is quite large enough to old both camps, and I for wine am quite happy to bob along in the middle enjoying the fruits of whatever they might produce.

Breaking up is hard to do...

I've been wondering whether leaving somewhere you've worked for a lengthy period of time is like leaving a long relationship?
That first interview, the nerves, the waiting, it's not so much like a first date. The wait for a call back, that period of uncertainty, are you going to be right for each other?
Then the first month or so of learning each others foibles. The excitement of new discoveries, the moments of illicit transgression. Your first unauthorised after work drink, the first time you arrive half an hour late and hungover despite living upstairs.
Then after not too long the realisation that you're a bit too ambitious to stay with the younger less pretty sister, you move uptown and sidle up to the big (younger and flashier doesn't really work within the metaphor but I'll run with it) sister. She's got goals, ambitions, hell she's much better dressed and has a whole lot more of what you're interested in. Of course, it's not as easy, you have to stay on your feet a lot more, and some of her little peculiarities are really quite hard to get over at first. But you persevere, you can see the good that could come of the relationship.
That first year, you're committed to it, you fight, you fuck, you think about walking out, you make up. You go out drinking together, you bust each others balls when it gets really busy, but then afterwards you still curl up together in bed, smile and fall happily asleep.
Imperceptibly you drift apart, it no longer seems like the end of the world if you don't see each other, the good times become just that bit less exciting and the little things you overlooked as being cute little curiosities become soul destroying. Songs you used to listen to together merely make you uncomfortable. You spend days on end not really doing anything, watching the staff running around you oblivious to how little you really care any more. You find yourself taking long hard looks at your partner, contrasting everything to how she was when you met, each wrinkle, every broken banquette and tap that's slightly different from the others. You get into arguments over the household finances, times have got tougher, so belts need to be tightened, there are disagreements over where best to make savings.
Then you finally make the jump, you send that email saying you can't do it any more, you're moving to Australia, it wasn't her, it was much more about you, how you just weren't ready to settle down, you both lie to each other a bit about how good it's been, and doubtless you'll both meet for a drink in a few years and reminisce about the good times, and laugh about how few names either of you can remember, but that's it.
Suddenly the wind that was flagging is gone, the water is placid, still and the sail is flapping listlessly. There's still another five or six weeks to go until you're off and free to flirt in bars anew, but you're still in each day, pretending that there's still a semblance of your heart in it.

Thank god you don't have to give notice when you break up..