Many
Americans are well aware of the delicious French
and Italian
wines, and finding some California
wines to be surprisingly good for most occasions. Hidden to many Americans is
the luxurious history and delight of Hungarian wines.
A proper Hungarian meal, whether in Budapest or an outlying rural
town, is served best with the pouring of Hungarian wine. We offer a few varieties
here.
Which wine should you
serve with which meal? Don't get caught up in the "red wine for red meat,
white wine for fish" game. There is some truth to that, but so much depends
on the spices in the meal, whether it is a dessert wine, and the other parts of
the meal. A fine multi-course meal, for example, will require a variety of sophisticated
wines, with one for each course.
We're not experts in wine. We fumble around
a lot trying different things out, and checking what matches our own tastes. We
take into consideration the advice of the books listed below, but it is our own
palate which defines whether or not we've enjoyed a meal. Sometimes we pick one
wine that didn't match the meal, and, as the Peanuts'
Charlie
Brown would say after losing a baseball
game, we "chock it up to experience," and we try again. While TV's Frasier
Crane and his brother Niles have it all figured out with their wine club,
the rest of us continue
to experiment, and every once in a while, find a wine that provides that connection
with all things epicurean.
Click
here for other ingredients unique to Hungarian cuisine. Egeszsegedre!
(Hungarian for 'Cheers!')
The first perfect, 100-point score ever bestowed by Wine & Spirits Magazine. New, it has whiplash flavors and off-the-chart acidity that can catch in your throat. As it mellows, it casts an almighty deposit, it turns a wonderful bright mahogany color and weaves an astonishing tapestry of flavors – of apricots, quinces, marmalade, butterscotch... 'So different from other wines' said one critic, 'that it is like seeing a new primary color'.
The first vintage of the "true" Royal Tokaji Essencia since the celebrated 1993, the 1999 Essencia is offered in a stately brass-hinged wooden box carved from Hungarian oak, lined with velvet and containing a hedonistic first – the indulgent Royal Tokaji Hungarian crystal sipping spoon. The spoon was designed exclusively for Royal Tokaji, enabling 33 sips per bottle – or 66 if you share your spoonful with a loved one. The back label bears the number of each bottle produced.
Wine Spectator Top 100 of 2006! The 2000 Red Label is straw-colored with a hint of gold. On the nose, there are fruit aromas dominated by apricot and quince, with a lovely touch of wild flowers and orange peel. The palate exhibits ripe orange, figs and orange and grapefruit peel flavors, with a hint of honey at the end. This is a well-balanced wine, with a nice velvety texture and excellent length.
Six vintages of the Royal Tokaji Red Label have been produced since its premier release of the 1990 vintage. Since then, the Red Label wine has been made in 1991, 1993, 1995, 1996, 1999 and 2000. This wine is a blend of carefully selected grapes from several of Royal Tokaji’s vineyards. The summer and fall of 2000 were dry in the Tokaj wine region, resulting in finely-matured grapes. Harvest began mid-September and went through early November.
Rating: 94 points, Editor's Choice "An amazing wine that is a benchmark for its class. Pure scents of dried apricot, citrus, jasmine and melon are coated with Asian spices, while the mouth is honeyed but nuanced, with flavors of dried spices, apricot marmalade and citrus fruits. What sets this wine apart is its mouthwatering acidity. A blend of grapes from multiple vineyards, this ... wine is a steal at this price." - Wine Enthusiast, June 2006
Furmint is a white varietal grown in Hungary and is the main ingredient of Tokaji Aszu. This yellowish-green grape displays a bouquet reminiscent of ripe apples in youth. After aging in wood, Furmint develops aromas of honey and walnuts. Rich in extract, it makes a heady, robust wine with pronounced acid. It is an early-budding, late-ripening variety that is particularly succeptible to botrytis. Often characterized by its high alcohol levels, Furmint's high acidity gives the wine longevity.
The Royal Tokaji 2005 Furmint is a dry, white wine with apricot, ripe apple and hint of honey on the nose. Well-balanced with a nice mineral backbone, this clear light-colored wine displays flavors of apples and fruit with just a touch of lemon zest.
Amazon.com's
Best of 2001 Though it drinks deep of its subject, Karen MacNeil's Wine
Bible deftly avoids two traps many wine books fall into: talking down to wine
novices or talking up to more experienced enophiles. The book avoids these traps
through MacNeil's obvious, and infectious, love of her subject, which comes out
in almost every sentence of the book, and which lets her talk about wine in a
way that combines the good teacher, the trusted friend, and the expert sommelier.
As director of the wine program at the Culinary Institute of America in Napa Valley,
California, MacNeil is one of the world's true experts on wine. After reading
a chapter on the Burgenland, for example, you've learned about the region's sweet
wines while feeling like you're actually there, toasting a glass of Cuvee Suss
with the author. It is this passion that leads to describing an Italian riservas
as "mesmerizing" and a Cabernet Sauvignon as having "texture like
cashmere."
The Wine Bible is broken into countries, hitting all of
the major wine producers and most of the minor ones. Each section gives detailed
descriptions of the country's wines (with chapters on individual regions when
necessary), highlighting specific wine producers and individual wines, as well
as talking about local foods, customs, and other tidbits that add to the reading
experience. MacNeil begins her journey through the world's wine with an invaluable
section on "Mastering Wine," which lets a reader get ready before uncorking
separate sections. --A.J. Rathbun
Book Description What is taste? Is it individual
or imposed on us from the outside? Why are so many of us so intimidated when presented
with the wine list at a restaurant? In The Accidental Connoisseur, journalist
Lawrence Osborne takes off on a personal voyage through a little-known world in
pursuit of some answers. Weaving together a fantastic cast of eccentrics and obsessives,
industry magnates and small farmers, the author explores the way technological
change, opinionated critics, consumer trends, wheelers and dealers, trade wars,
and mass market tastes have made the elixir we drink today entirely different
from the wine drunk by our grandparents.
In
his search for wine that is a true expression of the place that produced it, Osborne
takes the reader from the high-tech present to the primitive past. From a lavish
lunch with wine tsar Robert Mondavi to the cellars of Marquis Piero Antinori in
Florence, from the tasting rooms of Chateau Lafite to the humble vineyards of
northern Lazio, Osborne winds his way through Renaissance palaces, $27 million
wineries, tin shacks and garages, opulent restaurants, world-famous chais and
vineyards, renowned villages and obscure landscapes, as well as the great cities
which are the temples of wine consumption: New York, San Francisco, Paris, Florence,
and Rome. On the way, we will be shown the vast tapestry of this much-desired,
little-understood drink: who produces it and why, who consumes it, who critiques
it? Enchanting, delightful, entertaining, and, above all, down to earth, this
is a wine book like no other.
Amazon.com In Wine for Dummies, Mary Ewing-Mulligan
teams up with hubby and fellow wine educator Ed McCarthy to guide us on an exhaustive,
entertaining trip around the enological--that's right, enological--world. Though
clearly experts themselves (Ewing-Mulligan is one of a handful of Americans holding
the rare title Master of Wine), the authors assure us that even the most basic
knowledge will undermine the very notion of wine pretension. It's as simple as
this: "This wine is named for a grape variety. This wine is named for a geographical
region. When they make this kind of wine, it goes into this kind of bottle."
And so on. By providing the context in which to begin exploring wine, Wine
for Dummies can easily become the send-off for a lifelong education. McCarthy
and Mulligan deflate many of the wine snob's attitudes; they assure us that most
wine sold today is "good wine," and that any further distinctions made
about wine are ultimately subjective. The practical, jovial mentoring the authors
provide encourages readers to chart their own course toward drinking great wine
(although the authors naturally recommend dozens of their own favorites along
the way). In later chapters, McCarthy and Mulligan delve into more serious topics
such as investing in and cellaring wine. Even these discussions seem appropriate,
given that you'll probably find the allure of wine growing as its mystery subsides
to the force of this superb introductory text. --Todd Gehman
The
New Wine Lover's Companion Book Description The first edition
of this popular wine reference was hailed by Jurgen Gothe of the Vancouver Sun
as “the best new wine book in more than a decade.” The New Wine Lover’s
Companion has been completely rewritten and updated to make it even better. No
wine snobbery here. This book’s style is relaxed and conversational, serving
up information without intimidating its reader. Arranged alphabetically, nearly
4,000 entries include innumerable details on grape varieties; wine styles; wine-growing
regions; wine label terms; winemaking techniques; how to buy, store, and serve
wine; how to have a wine tasting; wine-testing terms; sizes and styles of glassware,
wine bottles, and wine openers; ordering wine in a restaurant; opening and serving
wine at home; temperatures for serving wine; and much more. This book is the only
A-to-Z wine reference that offers phonetic pronunciations. It boasts a totally
revised and expanded appendix enhanced with charts, line art, and sample labels.
Praise for the previous edition came from many food and dining authorities: “…an
invaluable, user-friendly reference. I learned something from the very first page
I turned to, and keep learning as I keep turning.” —William Rice, Food
and Wine Columnist, Chicago Tribune . . . “A great reference! . . . excellent
and accurate source for both wine professionals and those involved with wine purely
for the love of it.” —Jacques Pepin, cookbook author and TV chef
Wine
and War : The French, the Nazis, and the Battle for France's Greatest Treasure Amazon.com's
Best of 2001 Liberty, equality, and fraternity are all well and good, a
champion of French culture once remarked. But, he continued, what made France
truly superior to its neighbors was the French passion for wine, which "contributed
to the French race by giving it wit, gaiety, and good taste, qualities which set
it profoundly apart from people who drink a lot of beer." The commentator
may have had a point; after all, write Don and Petie Kladstrup, it was a well-known
fact that Adolf Hitler did not like wine. Still, their leader's teetotalism notwithstanding,
the Germans showed no distaste for French wine when they invaded France in 1940.
Indeed, among the first acts of the occupying army was to seize great stores of
wine, sending tens of thousands of barrels to the Third Reich and ordering the
conversion of thousands of hectares of vineyards into war production.
Some
French vintners, the Kladstrups write in this enjoyable study, went along with
orders. Many others, however, including the heads of distinguished houses like
Moët et Chandon, engaged in daring and dangerous acts of resistance wherever
they could. Some lied about their yields; others built false walls to hide precious
vintages; and still others concocted elaborate ruses, such as sprinkling carpet
dust into inferior grades of new wine to give it a musty, distinguished flavor.
Not every German was fooled, and some partisans of the grape died for their troubles.
But some Germans, at considerable risk to themselves, also looked the other way.
The Kladstrups fill their pages with memories of the wine war from both sides
of the struggle, stories sometimes somber, sometimes amusing, that commemorate
those "whose love of the grape and devotion to a way of life helped them
survive and triumph over one of the darkest and most difficult chapters in French
history." --Gregory McNamee
Great
Wine Made Simple : Straight Talk from a Master Sommelier Amazon.com About
one-third of the way through Andrea Immer's Great Wine Made Simple, the author
recounts an anecdote that could serve as the book's theme--alligator, rabbit,
and squab were all introduced to her the same way: "Tastes like chicken."
And as demonstrated by Immer, who went from debentures to de Rothschild when she
quit Morgan Stanley to eventually oversee the 50,000-bottle cellar at Manhattan's
famed Windows on the World, the leap from pigeon to Pichon-Lalande is analogous:
teaching novice wine drinkers what to expect is what her book, aptly subtitled
"Straight Talk from a Master Sommelier", is all about. With emphasis
on her "Big Six" varietals--Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Merlot,
Pinot Noir, and Cabernet Sauvignon--this "Immer-sion" class of tastings
lets amateur sippers differentiate the typical qualities of each, while illustrating
wine terms such as dry, crisp, oaky, and tannic. Practical advice abounds; one
chapter devotes itself to finding useful info on a wine label while avoiding "Stupid
Label Tricks," those bits of puffery or unfamiliar flavors (how many have
actually tasted lychee or red currant?) that can be confusing the average buyer.
And her "Flavor Map" concept--dividing the wine world into three climate
zones--eschews memorization in favor of some rudimentary geography.
Throughout,
her pronunciation guides are accurate and personable ("If you're pronouncing
'Riesling' right you have to smile."); and she provides a great postgraduate
curriculum of buying strategies, including the pros and cons of wine shops versus
your nearest Costco; and a consumer advisory about restaurant's "award-winning
wine lists." --Tony Mason
The
World Atlas of Wine Amazon.com The World Atlas of Wine is
something of a dream-team production. The names Hugh Johnson and Jancis Robinson
alone recommend any book on which they appear. The fifth edition (in 30 years)
of this astonishingly successful book lives up to, and surpasses, its predecessors.
In 350 densely packed but never clotted pages the authors manage the extraordinary
feat of characterizing wine production throughout the world, from Vancouver Island
to Japan--Buddhists first planted vines in that inhospitably precipitous, monsoon-lashed
land over a 1,000 years ago. After a substantial introductory section dealing
with the history of wine, its making, storage, and enjoyment, we're off. Starting
with (where else?) France and Burgundy, each wine area is summarized in terms
of its geography, climate, and preferred vines and the appellations, laws, and
traditions that govern production. The discussion of Pomerol, for example, tells
you a great deal in one short page. Even since 1994, when the fourth edition came
out, vast changes have swept the wine world, and many parts of the atlas have
been correspondingly completely reworked. South America, Canada, Southern France,
Italy, Greece, Eastern Europe, and the Eastern Mediterranean are among the areas
that have benefited. The regional maps that form the core of the book are a triumph
of clarity. The whole production constitutes a brilliant achievement of organization
and synthesis, forming an indispensable resource for any wine lover at all interested
in where the wine they drink comes from and why it tastes the way it does. --Robin
Davidson, Amazon.co.uk DVDs on Wine
Wine
Fundamentals From the Back Cover Wine Fundamentals contains
the essential information for understanding and demystifying the often intimidating
subject of wine. After watching this DVD, you will be equipped with the knowledge
and confidence to fully enjoy the world of wine.
CHAPTER
INDEX *History *Wine 101 *The Tastes and Flavors of Wine *Wine
Tasting *Which Wines Do You Like *It's All in the Label *Buying Wine *Navigating
the Wine List *Serving Wine *Aging and Storing Wine *Making Wine *Wine
and Health *Food and Wine
Jancis
Robinson's Wine Course Amazon.com Over the course of five
videos, Jancis Robinson gives us a basic understanding of wine: how it is made,
how to appreciate it, how to properly store, open, and drink it. Robinson is an
expert in the field, editor of The Oxford Companion to Wine, as well as a columnist
for the Wine Spectator. These tapes, though, are not just about the drink; just
as interesting is her look into the people behind the wines. Each video introduces
a new locale and the people who cultivate the grapes and turn them into nectar.
Robinson never speaks down to her viewer--she points out that wine should not
be a serious subject, that its point is to provide pleasure--although she is frequently
a bit condescending to the vintners in her interviews, making the show all the
more amusing. Some of the best moments occur when she offers a winemaker a taste
of the competitor's wine--somehow they never think it is quite up their own standards.
She revels in revealing the scandals and failures of the wine world, providing
a gossipy feel. While the wine course is more than enough reason to watch this
series, the cinematography is spectacular, beautifully highlighting the wine-growing
regions of the world--from Australia to Chile to Oregon to Europe. Mixing history
and culture with nuts and bolts, this set is a perfect place to start if you have
little or no previous knowledge of wine. --Jenny Brown
