Experience Wines of Bulgaria and Hungary

By Patrick Gerl
The News Star

Eastern Europe and the Middle East are hot beds of wine production. Around here, we do not even think of sampling the modern-day offerings from these ancient wine-producing lands. Shame on us. We are losing out on some great wine experiences.

Visit your local wine shop and ask to see wines from these regions. You will find that most do not have any. Only the best of the best will even have a dozen or more of them on the shelves.

Part of the problem with wines from this region is the uncertainty of supply from the wine makers. As we are all aware, the area has been war torn throughout history. Then, there was the communist influence in the area. The Muslim influence has also been a factor. There are a lot of reasons for the industry to have died, but the great wines produced in the region have carried wine making through some very tough times and circumstances.

Bulgaria has had many borders through history depending on marauders and foreign takeovers of the land and people. Written records have been destroyed, but archaeology gives us some clues to the rich culture of wine in what is now Bulgaria. Gold artifacts - cups, plates and coins - bear reliefs of grape fields, wine drinking and the Greek wine god Dionysus. Homer wrote about the wines of modern-day Bulgaria in the "Iliad." Ovid also wrote about the wines of the area.

Today there are about 80 wineries in the country. That is not very impressive when you consider that Napa has more than 300 wineries in just that county. However, about 30 percent of Bulgarian farm-production export is wine.

The French are very proud of their offerings and they consider themselves the best wine makers in the world. French wine writers have varying opinions of Bulgarian wine. One writer describes Bulgarian wine as "large quantities of inferior wine." Another writer, who was an archaeologist, has compared Bulgarian wines to the very fine wine of the Graves, a part of Bordeaux in western France.

The 2007 Schloss-Koblenz Vollreiflese Merlot (-) is available for those who dare to think outside the box and want to buy a bottle of Bulgarian wine. The wine is light and elegant - more French in styling than Californian - with nice fruit-to-acid balance. Vanilla, cherry and mushroom traits are found in this offering. A hint of mint shows on the finish.

Another country in eastern Europe that has been known for wine is Hungary. The quality of offerings from the county has yo-yoed from some of the best-made offerings in the world to average wines for various reasons throughout the last 100 years.

One famous Hungarian wine that has undergone change is known as bull's blood. Egri is a city in northeastern Hungary, and around this town, the wine Egri Bikaver is made. The traditional grape used in the creation of this sturdy everyday drinking wine is the kadarka. Since the kekfankos (grape) produced more grapes than the kadarka, the wineries started to use some of this prolific grape in blending to produce bull's blood. This led to a thinning of the sturdy wine and a lessening of quality.

There is a great red wine available that is perfect for those starting out on reds or just getting into wine. The Schloss-Koblenz Blaufrankish Ausbruch (-) is light and a bit sweet. Strawberry, cherry and raspberry dominate the aromas and flavors. This is also a nice summertime cooler as it can be chilled a little without destroying its good traits. This wine is bottled in Germany, so the name of the grape used on the label is blaufrankish. If the wine were bottled in Hungary, the Hungarian name for the grape, kekfrankos, would have been used.

Red wines are a minority in Hungarian winemaking. White grape varietals are commonly planted in Hungary. The furmint is a versatile grape than can exhibit traits of smoke, spice, citrus and stone fruits. It is highly acidic and sharp to the taste. It is a major contributor to the famous tokaji wines of Hungary. (You will also find this name spelled tokay or tokaj.) The furmint gets its name from the Hungarian word "froment," which means wheat-gold color.

The sweetness of tokaji wines is measured in "puttonyos," which is a unit of measure of botrytis-infected grapes added to a gonci barrel of still wine. Dry tokaji wine is usually sold as furmint. The least sweet tokaji is two puttonyos. There are sweetness levels of three, four, five and six. The top of the line and most expensive tokaji are called aszu essensia, which is seven puttonyos. These are very rare and only the best wine shops will have any available.

Aszu is the Hungarian term for noble rotted (botrytis infected) grapes. These grapes have very little juice and what liquid is present takes in all of the concentrated sugars.

You are missing out on a lot of tremendous wines if you overlook the wines of Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Yugoslavia. They are hard to find, but the best of the best wine shops will have an offering or two available for you to purchase and experience.

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