Rest of the World

  The Vylyan Ordog 2012 we found at a restaurant one evening. Our choices were limited to only three reds (one of which was immediately eliminated for the sin of being a Merlot) and of the two remaining options, the Vylyan won because of the fantastic description: Because this is Hungary, the description in the menu was in Hungarian, English, and German. I have no idea what the Hungarian says but the English translation was pretty boring telling is only that “barrel aging makes this wine really demonic”. It’s in the German though that we found the best description: “Der Teufel der alten Legende ist liebevoll!” Or: The Devil of

  I brought home a number of bottles from my miserable week in Hungary. Which, to clarify, was miserable not because I was in Hungary but because of why I was there. What’s not entirely miserable is this 2012 Chateau Vazsonyi Zweigelt I picked up while there. I’m not sure I’ve ever had a Zweigelt wine before. Typically an Austrian grape (although apparently also cultivated in Hungary) the blue-black Zweigelt grape is used for both red and rose wines. A dark, opaque red, the Chateau Vazsonyi is very hot in the nose with cassis and maybe blueberry. It’s definitely a little hot. Not much for the tannins, nor is there a great

  We’re trying something a little different today! I was stuck in the middle of nowhere Hungary for work for a 10-day staff retreat…so naturally I was drinking. I was drinking a lot. It’s been 12-ish years since I was in Hungary and I knew zero about wine then which means that Hungarian wine made no impression on me (sorry, dudes). However I was happy to learn on this trip! That was about the only ting I was happy to do on that trip… The village where we were sequestered had a festival of Hungarianness. Although (as one vendor explained to me) it was not Hungarianness that has always been