IT AIN'T OVER TILL THE FAT LADY SINGS

In this instance I think ‘it ain’t over till the fat man sings’ is more appropriate.

As you know, ‘It ain’t over till the fat lady sings’ is attributed to a comment made by a sportscaster, Ralph Carpenter, during a close ball game in the mid 70’s.

It is an allusion to the final song in the last of Wagner’s Ring Operas.  The valkyrie Brunnhillde, usually a rather buxom and zaftig soprano, goes on for about 20 minutes in an aria.  At the end of the aria, it is all over for the Norse Gods and the curtain falls.  Forgive me, Wagner.

I started out my wine tasting trip with the goal of tasting 150-200 wines.  The final number is 138.  It is low in large part because when I did tastings in other countries, I usually got just a generous splash of wine in a glass.  Here you get a deciliter.  I have come to think of it as ‘deathaliter’.  My limit is six glasses at a sitting, which is more than three quarters of a bottle.  Actually, about glass number five, my nose starts getting fuzzy if I have consumed the wine at other than a leisurely pace.

I am spending my last four days here in Budapest.  I have brought with me four bottles of wine to consume: two Fekete Chardonnays, a Fekete Shiller, and finally a delicious Bock 2009 Royal Cuvee.  I distinctly remember tasting that last one.   The bouquet is delightful, and it has the feeling of liquid silk when it first hits the mouth.

I am going to the Central Market Hall to do my grocery shopping for my last meals here (other than a visit to Black Cab Burger for my hamburger fix).  My purchases include a little over a pound of goose foie gras, a 20 ounce T-bone steak, and a passel of fresh veggies.  I am then off to get my burger.

I choose the 10 ounce one loaded with toppings and an order of fries.  It is a struggle to finish the burger.  The fries are delicious, but I can’t finish them.

I go back to my apartment and take a nap.  The steak and foie gras spend the night together in the fridge.

The next afternoon I prepare the steak and top it with two generous pieces of seared foie gras.  Wine consumption begins in earnest.

Part of the evening is taken up with chewing pepto bismol tablets as the result of consuming too much rich food and wine.

The next morning I am confronted with most of the foie gras.  The answer is to prepare it in portions in a sous vide manner. I put individual portions in small cereal bowls and add a littler sugar water, as I have no sweet wine such as sauterne which you usually splash in the foie gras terrine.

It takes about an hour and a half on the stove top water bath for each of my three portions.  In the end I declare them quite satisfactory and eat two of them with veggies and wine. 

The next morning I make two enormous foie gras ‘sandwiches’ and pack them for my trip home.  FYI, USDA , I reached American soil sans foie gras.

Some end notes.  Budapest is a beautiful city filled with statues, cafes and the Danube.  It is definitely worth a visit.

Do not pay your sign painter in advance with your product.

You can gauge the price of your hotel room by what your fridge looks like.

And lastly, take my tasting notes only for what they are worth.  As I tell my friends when they ask me what they should drink, my answer is always the same - drink what pleases you.

On that note, it is interesting to see the divergence of views, even from the pros:

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/jun/23/wine-tasting-junk-science-analysis

WINE TASTING GARAYBPINCE - SZEKZARD

(132 wines tasted by the end of this blog)

I’m going back to Fekete to buy wines which I will take to Budapest to drink while waiting the last few days to finish my trip.  However, I am not going to climb two mountains to get there.  My trusty steed for the trip is a bicycle available here at the guesthaus.

I pedal to the road that turns off to go to his vineyard and have to dismount because it is so steep. 

As I push my bike up the road to Fekete I encounter some men crushing grapes.

 It is a steep road that winds its way up to Fekete.  However, I am rewarded by some nice views as I make my way upward.

Finally, huffing and puffing, I push the bicycle into the Fekete courtyard.  Two bottles of Chardonnay and one Shiller later nestled safely in the front basket on the bike I head back down the mountain.  After a couple hundred feet I have to dismount.  The grade is so steep that with the brakes fully applied and the wheels locked, the bike continues to skid down the road.  Back on the town road I pedal home uneventfully.

My wine supply now totals four bottles including the one I was given at the Bock Ermitage.  I will be luck to finish them all before I head home.

That afternoon I walk downtown to Garay Pince for my final wine tasting in Szekzard.  

I start out with a couple of whites – a sauvignon blanc and then a risling.

For my third I was curious about one on the tasting menu I had never heard of called Fuxli. The waiter went to his computer and translated the word for me.  It means fox.  He pointed to the reverse label on the bottle which listed about  8 or so vineyards.  I think he meant that only these vineyards produced the wine.  It tasted like an amped up rose, in other words a shiller.

Later I found out that these Szekzard wineries are trying to bring back a centuries old tradition of drinking a shiller that was called fuxli.  In Zekzard, as in Eger for bull’s blood, there is a prescribed amount of certain wines that must make up the blend.  It seems to me a marketing ploy to sell wine.

I then asked the waiter which of two merlots I should try.  He pointed to another wine on the list and proceeded to pour it.  I was amazed.  It was only a 2015 vintage but had both a lovely bouquet and flavor.  How could they get so much in a bottle with only a year old wine?  The wine was 2015 Bio Kadarka.  It deserves a picture by itself.

After that I asked the waiter to choose the two remaining wines for tasting. 

They are shown below.

 Each wine I  tasted was a deciliter.  That means slightly over three quarters of a bottle of wine consumed in a rather short period.  I sought food across the street which turned out to be a coffee house. 

 The pastry soaked some of the alcohol and as I made my way back up to the guesthaus I spied a restaurant called Bella Napoli which is in the corner of a courtyard of a four star hotel.  I walk in sit down and order soup.  Out it came and I asked the waiter for bread.  He says two minutes (in German) and zwei or drei minutes later out came a rather flat focaccia which had been topped with finely chopped rosemary and sea salt, and heated in the oven.  This is definitely one you should try at home.

My tasting notes are below:

Twickel

Kajmad

Sauvignon blanc 2015

Bouquet elderflower young Sauvignon 

Slightly tart finish

Refreshing a bit big on the grape

Olasrisling 2012

Markvart Janos

Lovely bouquet shares some notes with a Chardonnay

Light honey color

Flavor is full body Riesling

Fruity and a bit like a Chardonnay 

Sweet peach lingering on the palate.

This is a very nice white wine!

Heimann fuxli 2015

Full bodies fresh tasting shiller. 

Blend of Kadarka and Kekfrankos 

Full bodied rose colored wine with good structure.  A rose on steroids.  Would be excellent with pork.

Bio Kadarka 2015

Illyes kuria

Awesome bouquet

Light cherry, oak, 

The flavor is simply sublime

How do the get such a wonderful aroma and flavor in a young wine?

Posta Borhaz 2012

Kekfrankos 

Fruity flavor fading to dry just a touch of tannin

A marvelous example of a wine made from Kekfrankos.  Great with a steak!

This is a very fine wine

Bouquet somewhere between a Cabernet and rijoa.

Last wine 

Vida

Bikaver 2013

Blend of four wines

Kekfrankos is the base followed by merlot, Cabernet franc and Kadarka 

Bouquet deep fruits of the forest

Flavor goes dry very quickly

A flavor I do not recognize before it becomes quickly dry