A Spicy K and K Reunification: Weninger Kékfrankos 2008, Sopron

A couple of years ago Franz Weninger, one of Burgenlands most famous wineproducers, dared to make two or three steps, if you got small feet maybe five or six, further east over the border to Balf in Sopron Region/Hungary. Over there he cultivates almost all popular regional and international red varieties. The grapes for his basic Kékfrankos or Blaufränkisch were cultivated on brown earth and slate in the Frettner vineyard. The aging took nine months in 2/3 oak and 1/3 concrete. Another rather interesting fact about this wine is the harvest date: 14^th September 2008. Does anybody remember what happened on this very day? Ha, Ha! Ups!

Well, back to today's wine:

The colour seemed fairly regular for a Blaufränkisch. Still very vital, dark red and with some transparency! The nose foretold a possible calamity (maybe the harvest date?)! At first I got a whiff of hyper strong green pepper and some red chilli. Very intense and very unusual! I am not kidding! It made me sneeze three or four times. Besides that I got milder scents of basil, some black currant, some dark cherries and hints of an autumn’ish meadow + hay. Unfortunately not a lot of fruit scents. The taste had more fruit. Again black currant, this time in symbiosis with liquorice, some austere and hard dark cherry flavours, very fine and decent smoke attributes aaaand (unfortunately) tons of green pepper and even more red chilli. Maybe the nose was a bit more extreme, but a well balance taste is something different. The concentration was medium strong and its finish lasted some seconds. No complaining about the well prop acid either. The main problem was its extreme spiciness. On the second day it eased a bit. Just a bit and the fruit said Bye! Maybe a wine more recommendable for an extra spicy goulash or pepperoni salad! I don’t know … I think I never had anything like that before. Normally I am into rough wines but this stuff was by far too much for me. Well okay, apart of this specific balance problem not such a disappointing wine after all. That is why: