Are these Central Europe's Best Grape Varieties?

Let's hear it for Furmint, Welschriesling and Blaufränkisch

If wine was nice and simple, you could connect every grape variety to a specific region or at least country - Tempranillo from Rioja, Sauvignon Blanc from the Loire or Hárslevelű from Tokaj. But plants and DNA have a habit of not respecting national borders. Some of Europe’s top cultivars aren’t easily contained within a single territory.

I’m not talking about Cabernet or Merlot, which have become truly globalised, but rather about varieties like Furmint, Welschriesling and Blaufränkisch. This power trio have a long history throughout the former Austro-Hungarian empire and beyond. I don’t think their omnipresence is accidental. It shows that growers continue to value them over many centuries.

Liam and Sinead Cabot are an Irish couple who created a small winery in Štajerska, Slovenia (Lower Styria) in 2012. Their estate, Roka, is situated in the hamlet of Kog close to the famed winemaking village of Jeruzalem. Despite its historical provenance, the area’s modern-day profile for wine is poor - something the couple want to change. However, it also happens to be a confluence of those three varieties - even if here they are called Šipon, Laški Rizling and Modra Frankinja. The idea of a workshop to explore their potential was cooked up by the Cabots together with their neighbour and mentor Miro Munda (Miro Vino).

As I wrote last March, Roka’s first three workshops from 2022 - 2024 each focused on one grape variety. But this time for ‘Kog 25’ they went for broke and covered all three in as many days. Participants were able to taste 105 wines (35 from each variety) in a morning seated blind tasting, plus a more informal walk-round setting in the afternoons. The chance to bench-mark grape varieties like this, comparing wines from up to nine different countries, is rare and incredibly valuable. I learnt a lot.

Here are my brief takeaways and notes on some favourite wines.

Furmint

Although its origins are hazy, Furmint has the longest history and the highest plantings by far in Hungary’s Tokaj region. It’s starting to make a comeback in Burgenland, Austria. It is increasingly beloved of winemakers outside Hungary due to being extremely climate proof: it ripens late, doesn’t need a lot of water and retains acidity even in hot weather. Wagram-based grower Martin Diwald told me that it’s particularly well suited to making natural wine, due to the low pH and high acidity: working with no or minimal added sulphites presents very few risks as the wine tends to be naturally stable.

There are hundreds of listed synonyms but the most commonly encountered are Šipon (Slovenia), Pušipel (Croatia) and Moslavac (Serbia). Although there are two Austrian names, Mosler and Zapfner, I’ve never seen either of these on a bottle.

Erika Rácz, a biodynamic grower whose winery is named SanzonTokaj, provided a fascinating insight that plantings in Tokaj increased after phylloxera, reflecting the variety’s easygoing nature in the vineyard.

The Kog 25 Furmint tasting included wines from Austria, Slovenia, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia and one outlier from Rheinhessen, Germany (Bianka and Daniel Schmitt).