A life-changing furmint

2016 Garten Eden This producer stands out as making the finest wines from the furmint grape that I have ever tasted, says Matthew Jukes.

Matthew Jukes
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published
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2016 Garten Eden, Furmint, Michael Wenzel, Rust, Burgenland, Austria £73, reduced to £64 each by the case, TheGoodWineShop.co.uk; £64 per bottle at Newcomer Wines, Newcomerwines.com,020-7249 2177, email: hello@newcomerwines.com.

Newcomer Wines' recent tasting, focusing on top-flight central European estates, was an eye-opener. Peter Honegger, the palate behind this pioneering company, favours wines from the natural side of the fence, but there were enough examples of epic wines that didn't seem to me to be too funky or dank. One particular producer stood out as making the finest wines from the furmint grape that I have ever tasted.

Michael Wenzel's father, Robert, started bringing furmint cuttings over the border from Hungary in the 1980s to reintroduce it into the local winemaking culture. Grown organically on quartz, mica and gneiss soils, these wines are electrifying. Before I launch into a suite of whites, Wenzel's 2016 Aus Dem Kalk Blaufrankisch (£21, Newcomer Wines) benefits from the inclusion of 20% whole bunches in the mix and it is a beautifully exotic interpretation of this haunting red grape.

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If the 2016 Furmint "Unfiltriert" (£28, The Good Wine Shop) was the only white on show I'd have been satisfied. It is unfiltered, grippy, perfumed and vital. The 2016 Kvarc Furmint (£31, Newcomer Wines) adds gravitas and length, while fleshing out the palate, too. The tiny Garten Eden site was planted a decade ago with centenarian cuttings and this wine is nothing short of life-changing. The red quartz soils, depicted on the label, give rise to the most complex and mesmerising dry furmint I have ever tasted.

Matthew Jukes is a winner of the International Wine & Spirit Competition's Communicator of the Year (MatthewJukes.com).

Matthew Jukes
Matthew Jukes

Matthew Jukes has worked in the UK wine business for well over three decades and during this time has written 14 wine books.  

Matthew regularly lectures, judges, speaks at wine conferences and runs masterclass tastings for both corporate and private clients all over the world. Matthew is also the creator of his ground-breaking initiative, the One Day Wine School, an indulgent day of tasting and learning first performed in 2006.

He has been the MoneyWeek wine correspondent since 2006 and has written a weekly column for the Daily Mail’s Weekend Magazine since 1999. His four highly-acclaimed, annual wine reports – the Burgundy En Primeur Report, the Bordeaux En Primeur Report, the Piemonte Report and the 100 Best Australian Wines – are published on his website, www.matthewjukes.com.

Matthew is one of the world’s leading experts on Australian wine and, with Brisbane-based wine writer Tyson Stelzer, runs an annual competition in Australia to find ‘The Great Australian Red’.  He was made Honorary Australian of the Year in the UK at the 2012 Australia Day Foundation Gala dinner. 

Matthew is a winner of the International Wine and Spirit Competition's Communicator of the Year Trophy.  His thoughts, recommendations and tastings notes are followed very closely by the wine world at large.

 

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