I got invited to some cellar activities the day before New Years Eve, so I couldn´t say no as Tibor is a good friend and his father does a rather nice Zenit wine as well. Meant to be for friends and private consumption only, hence no bottling and selling takes place.

He buys its grapes from the local University who is involved in grape growing as they have a faculty for viticulture. Just a quick note the in Hungary -thought to be famous abroad as well, but in fact it´s not at all- celebrated crossing Cserszegi füszeres (Irsai Oliver x “Red” Traminer) got his name from the hills of Cserszeg and was made at the  the Georgikon. Which has quite a long history as it was the first Agricultural Higher Education School in Europe when it was established back in the XVIII. century.

I might say this loud Tibor´s father (who is Tibor by the way too) luckily doesn’t do Cserszegi füszeres, but Zenit. A cross between Ezerjó (Thousand good) and Bouvier, the later is rather famous as a parent in crossings (like in  the Zéta-grape variety in Tokaj) probably a cross between Pinot Blanc and Zöldszilváni, while Ezerjó can make some fantastic wines, look out in Mór for these. Back to the Zenit it´s an early ripening variety and is mainly planted in the Balaton highlands where it can produce wines with great minerality and high acidity. It usually bears notes of spiciness, mint and stone fruit aromas with a floral tick. The cluster is small yet compact and thick berry system while the leaf tends to be quite large.

We kicked off early morning, as it´s hard to work with an empty stomach we started with a good breakfast and some schnapps made out of the grape skin of the Zenit grape, marc. This might sound for other unusual how in earth can you drink spirit at 8 AM and then work, I guess you´re right. But in this case it´s more about the fun as no profit is meant to be made, it´s rather the joy of life, hence you work and drink (maybe not always in this order), but the work will be done. I can tell, no matter how funny and in good mood we´re, but the work has to be finished, properly.

Our mission that day was to get all the wine out from the glass jars, pump them with the machine into an open vat, clean the glass vessels and after sulphuring and filtering the wine pumping it back to the clean vessels. The official winery term would be “racking” but for the title I used the “pumping over” which rather indicates the process of mixing skins and liquid in making red wine. So racking, separate the clear wine from the sediment…

Fermentation has ceased and the bubbles (CO2) have stopped working, now the gravity brings down some dead yeast cells and other matters. If we would leave it in contact with the wine without regular stirring, moving or by racking in this case it would affect the wine as it´s still in contact with the yeast. It could have an unpleasant and bitter taste. We did an open racking where the wine got pumped into an open vat and then later after adding a minimal dose of sulphur something like 10g for 500 litre wines, potassium metabisulphite to be very precise.

Filtration is good but not in all cases necessary I reckon if a wine maker goes very safe (depending of course on the type of wine) he uses filtration as it makes wine more stable. Tibor used sheet filtration where the so called pad or frame filter (as there are plates put together inside with the sheets) will catch the matter. Tibor said he does not pushes the wine through dense filtration. The wine doesn’t pass through all the  sheets (in this case we had 8 the more you have the quicker it is) but through one which is usually a cellulose fibre. You have to push the pads strongly together to prevent dripping, leaking.

It took a long time to get the wines back to the jars as filtering became slower and slower as time passed by, despite that we changed it once. But let the machine do it´s work and we had our discussion about everything including wine. From the local mayor to the politician sitting in the parliament through religion, beliefs, society, economy and of course wine. Wine is very much an amazing creation as you can discuss and argue about such tricky and complex subjects (having a different point of view) yet still be in a very friendly atmosphere.

But how is Tibor´s wine as this is the question which matters at the end of the day. I tasted the 2007 vintage Zenit back in October (4/10/2008), clean straw yellow colour, welcoming nose with herbal, blossom and floral like aromas, medium intensity. Dry, good acidity with a floral yet nutty/almond finish, very correct wine indeed, pleasant, drink it in a year. And the 2008 vintage before sulphuring and filtering had a little bit more residual sugar and a sparkling effect (but that will go away) yet clean and pleasant, very much enjoyable quality. As I said to him if everyone would drink such a correct wine people would have always pleasant drop. Maybe all Hungarians should  have a cellar?! They could exchange wine (including bottled and aged wine) with each other then. I´m looking forward to have my cellar one day…

Tags: racking

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