Frigyes Bott named Newcomer of the Year on Budapest International Wine Festival |
Tastes from abroad
The festival traditionally invites a guest country to display
its viticultural fare alongside that of the host. This year, however, it
was the turn of ethnic Hungarian winemakers from neighbouring countries
Slovakia, Slovenia, Serbia and Romania. So we head north, into
Slovakia, and the wines of Frigyes Bott, who was named “Newcomer of the
Year” in the Hungarian “Winemakers’ Winery” awards last year. He offered
up some delightfully fresh whites, including a crisp and pure
Zöldveltelini.
Then came the surprise, a classy 2008 Pinot Noir that
would have no cause to feel embarrassed in the company of everyday
wines from Burgundy, the spiritual homeland of this grape. Bott’s
vineyards are near Sturovo, just over the Danube from Hungary, where
conditions are similar to the Ászár-Neszmely wine region across the the
river. Bott believes that Hungary’s wine regions, and of course his
corner of Slovakia, have all the attributes of soil and climate to
produce fare as good as that from the world’s best-known wine regions.
Source: The
Budapest Times
Written by Robert Hodgson |
Monday, 20 September 2010 |
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