Description
Szent Donát started producing organic wine in 2017, and by 2020 they were farming organically on the entire estate. The winery also takes great care in the cellar to make its wines with minimal intervention, without added sulfur or additives, and mostly bottled without any clarification or filtration. Olaszrizling is grown all over Hungary, but it has a special affinity with the northern side of Lake Balaton, where it’s enjoyed as an easy-drinking wine by summer vacationers, either on its own or with a splash of soda water (to make it a fröccs). This wine is classified as a hegybor (“hill wine”), meaning that the grapes are all grown on one hill in the village of Csopak, but from multiple different vineyard parcels: Slikker, Nagykút, Hegyalja, Kishegy, and Berekhát. This wine has a special harmony due to the multiple different harvests from the different vineyards, as well as the blend of grapes from red sandstone and marl soils. Szent Donát makes this wine every year, and it is a classic northern Balaton Olaszrizling—refreshing, fruity, and crisp—but too good to add soda water to! The wines from each vineyard were fermented and separately blended in March. This is a crystal-clear wine, which is exceedingly easy and pleasant to drink, yet also complex. It has a moderate acidity, which is followed by a dry finish, which is at the same time caramel-like, mineral, and flinty. The wine has a slight bitterness that is typical to Olaszrizling, as well as a yoghurt creaminess, and flavors of almonds, peach, apple, citrus, and green walnuts. This wine is great with seafood, oysters, and cheese.
