Cellar book february
February 17th, 2009 by Sebestyén CsabaDespite the cold weather we started pruning. We can proceed with the job pretty well as the frozen land makes it much easier, you don’t have to paddle in the mud. Dad and I already decided last autumn that we would plant some more Kadarka along with the old stock. We took the spurs necessary for the graft from the 50-60-year-old stocks. We would like to replace the missing vines next spring, but for that we need to graft this year. I hope that we will succeed in transmitting the great qualities of the old vines.
We constantly have something to do in the cellar as well. The malolactic fermentation of the 2008 wines is going well. Interesting data is that it occurred first in the wines with high alcohol content of 15-16 alcohol strength. This year we tried it spontaneously without inoculation. It seems to have worked out better this year. Even after the sulphiting the wines seem promising; some of them are already reaching the standard of the 2007 great wines concerning the content. We have created a new blending from 2007. Some might have heard about it even tasted the different components. We named it ‘Iván-völgyi’. It has become a very serious wine. I will return to that in March after the wine tasting and conciliation with the Bortársaság.
In February I travelled a lot and held many wine tastings all over the country. I was in Kecskemét, Salgótarján, Szentendre, and Budapest several times. The Bortársaság put a discount on the wines from Szekszárd between 16 and 18 February. During the wine tastings in the shops I met many long seen acquaintances. We reduced the prices of some of our wines (Bikavér, Grádus). I was thinking for long whether it had been a good decision. The tastings proved it to be a good decision. It landed both wines in a vantage marketing ground, and the wine lovers also welcomed the wallet-friendly gesture.
As the weather is turning to spring, more and more people are interested in visiting our wine cellar. Thanks God the diary is gradually filling with booked appointments. I like these occasions very much as they are much more personal than wine dinners. We will have a bit of this and a bit of that as well. I miss my little sister more and more by the day as we used to do these together. It would be nice to have some extra help sometimes.