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| Bott “Csontos” Furmint Tokaji/Hungary 2021 Krutzler Rosé Burgenland/Austria 2023 Kora Karmazin Moravia 2021 Moric “Haus Marke” Burgenland/Austria 2022 Bott-Frigyes “Faricka” Slovakia 2022 |
| This evening we’re tasting central and eastern European wines—a spectacular, dry Tokaji, a rosé made from blaufränkisch, and three varied expressions of blaufränkisch red wine from three different countries. Blaufränkisch is, to me, the most intriguing red variety planted in Austria, but it’s also found throughout central and eastern Europe, with significant plantations found in Hungary. It’s a likely a medieval grape and you might suppose it has a long and noble history. While it certainly deserves one, in the 20th century few thought much of it until the mid-eighties, when the intrepid Ernst Triebaumer demonstrated what it can do, when cultivated and vinified with care. A few years later, a new wave of Blaufränkisch growers followed, including Roland Velich, who now produces some of the most profound Austrian red wines. Velich makes several single vineyard wines, some of which are rare and expensive, but it’s his reasonably priced “normale” bottling that we return to, repeatedly. Tonight, we’re pouring his everyday “Haus Marke,” which is his taut and lean blend of blaufränkisch, zweigelt, and blauburgunder (aka pinot noir).
One of blaufränkisch’s genetic parents is gouais blanc, a disease-tolerant, productive white variety that growers have woven into the fabric of European grape cultivation for hundreds of years. Per Carole Meredith, the name originates from an old French term for peasant, “gou,” indicative of the poor reputation the grape held amongst the fancy folk, and while a few Swiss growers produce varietal bottlings of gouais, I’ve never seen it in the States. I understand that gouais is a bland variety but, hell, I need to try it. Chardonnay is the most well-known gouais crossing, and gamay is yet another, and knowing that it’s also a genetic parent of blaufränkisch is a testament to the complexity of grape genetics. The inductive fallacy that knowing a relative necessarily means that you know the child is a pitfall, both with people and wine grapes. If your uncle is an MIT graduate, this indicates nothing about your own acuity. It turns out that furmint is yet another of gouais’ progeny, and we’re tasting a lovely dry single-vineyard furmint tonight from the amazing and precise Judit Bodo. I’ve worked with and loved Judit’s wines for at least fifteen years after being introduced to her through the graces of Frank Dietrich and his now defunct import company, Blue Danube. She makes a range of Tokaji, some bone dry (as is the wine we’re tasting tonight), some off-dry, some unabashedly sweet, but all are beautifully crafted wines that somehow manage to be both perfumed but also with an undergirding of minerality. |