#60- Blaufrankisch (Kekfrankos)

I have a very special place in my heart for Hungary. Almost a year ago, I was privileged enough to have visited this amazing country as part of an Eastern European tour. Our last stop was Hungary, Budapest to be exact. During out tour, the most amazing thing happened- a volcano in Iceland started blowing ash across Europe, effectively putting air travel at a standstill. We were stuck in Budapest for an extra six days. The city is lovely, the people are kind and generous and I now hold this country near and dear to me.

Last weekend for my dad's birthday, I brought over a botle of red wine from Hungary. The grape is the Kekfrankos grape and the winery is J & J Eger (2006). The Kekfrankos grape is also known as Blaufrankisch grape- blau meaning blue. This grape is very popular in Eastern Europe and is often known as the Pinot Noir of the East. The wine is described as being natural in taste and the soil is rich in volcanic tufa soils.

The wine is quite dark and it had a nice spicy kick to it (cinnamon I've read). Kristin and I really liked this wine. Craig seemed to enjoy it as well. We polished off the whole bottle within the hour (and then Craig and Kristine proceeded to make their way through a few other bottles of wine as well). The wine also had a very distinct berry taste, perhaps strawberries and a slight hint of vanilla. All around, this was a very pleasant bottle of wine. The wine was $26.99 and was purchased at Liquor Select at 149th St. It is quickly becoming one of my favourite stores.

The wine paired nicely with a lovely lasagna my mom made from scratch. That's right, I said from scratch. She absolutely refuses to buy store bought lasagna and even makes her own pasta. Of course I'm full of b.s. but there's not much else to say about lasagna.

I will definitely be buying this wine again. It'll be one of those wines that I bring to a party as a nice pleasant surprise and for a couple of people to step away from their regular wine drinking. Chalk this one up in the wine column! 

As you can see from my picture, I wore red on Valentine's day. I may not at this time have any reason to celebrate Valentine's day other than my dad's birthday, I can still appreciate the day and hope that many of you had a fabulous day! I love wine too!

Ich bin ein wine drinker- St. Goar

My tour of Europe included 10 countries. Lots of wine was drunk in the making of this vacation. And there was also some beer. Germany, oh Germany. How I love thee. I'm glad I can speak German. Okay, scratch that. I'm glad I took five years of German and have retained enough to be able to order ice cream and beer.

My first night in Germany was in Munich and the only thing I did was drink 1 litre beers in tents at the biggest party in the world- Oktoberfest. If you've never been, and even if you don't drink beer, go at least once in your life. It is a sight to behold.

Our second night in Germany was in a smaller village further south as we headed into Austria, a place called St. Goar. Now I've written about this place already because I reviewed the Pinot Noir that I picked up from this place. So I won't repeat it again (please read post #32- pinot noir).

But I want to post pictures so I have to write something. It was cool tasting wine out of shot glasses. I recommend this method if you're doing a wine tasting (perfect sample size) and it just makes the whole thing a party.

I bought three wines, have already had one, was supposed to have drunk the Riesling already and am saving the icewine for a special occasion. Ice wines are delicious if you've never tried one.

Canada does excellent ones. They're pretty expensive so sample the wine first before you shell out some big dough. I bought this ice wine for 26 Euro when it sells for 80 Euro. A good deal I'd say. Now I just need a reason to drink it. Anyone have ideas for me?

I really enjoy German wines. Apparently Europeans don't like their wines (and while I don't think all Europeans are like this) I do think that many of them cannot get beyond thinking that any other country other than France and Italy is capable of making a decent wine. As Canadians, we're more open to trying wines as the majority of our wines are imported. I am now officially done giving my opinion on European wine drinkers. I like German wine- that's what matters!

#32- Pinot Noir

Also known as Spatburgunder. A nice German wine, I picked this up on my latest trip to Europe. Yes- I'm back! I got back from my three week trip around Europe just over a week ago and it's been go go since. I plan to do a special post (this week sometime) on the various wines I got to try while I was there. To be surrounded by vineyards and dozens of wines I'd never heard of, I was in wine heaven!

But back to the wine at hand. As I mentioned, it is a wine that I picked in Germany. We stayed in a beautiful little town called St. Goar and had the most interesting wine tasting at the Familienwappen (weingut Carl Fricke) Weingut Schloss Rheinfels Winery. I ended up purchasing three wines and one of the wines I picked up was their Spatburgunder wine. It is made from the Pinot Noir grape. Usually considered a red wine wine, this wine was actually a rose wine! But I have learned that most Spatburgunder wines are in fact rose wines, and are very expensive to purchase (I must say I got myself a deal then...) This bottle of wine was about $22.00 CDN (I can't remember exactly how many Euros it was, so this is purely a guess).

I brought the wine over to my parents house for Thanksgiving dinner. Five of us wanted to taste the wine so after the first pour, there was very little left. As per tradition, mom made a turkey feast and I felt that the Spatburgunder was an excellent match to the meat. More and more people recommend going with sweeter wines for turkey and many are doing sparkling wines. While not a sparkling wine, the Pinot Noir grape is often very sweet. And sweet this wine was!

The wine is very lightweight and therefore easy to drink. Both my mom, Sharon (new sister in law) and I had no problems polishing off the wine. However, both brothers had issues finishing the wine, finding it very sweet and not to their tastes. Luckily for them I have no issue finishing their wine for them. The wine is very fruity and reminded me of a Zinfandel (well the rose anyway).

I really enjoyed the wine and wished I had brought more home with me but alas, I will have to settle for the memory of an amazing wine taste and knowing that I shared it with the most important people in the world to me. Yup, they're worth that much!

Next up is the Kerner grape and guess what? I bought myself a Canadian wine. It's good to be back home.