This article was long due at least in English. I did post in the past a few writings and messages about my concerns and thoughts to mix wine with sparkling water, in Hungarian called fröccs.

Now, this was never a Hungarian thing, to add sparkling water to wine (or the other way around, some say there is a special technique involved, actually). History proves me in many instances that Hungarian picked this behaviour up during the Habsburg Monarch time, and got spread more likely from the Germans.
“More ungarico bibere” – to drink wine the Hungarian way.

Antonio Bonfi who recorded this during king Matthew in the 15. century Hungarians drink wine pure, while other nations tend to add water to the wine. It was not uncommon that Greeks or Romans liked to add a splash of sea water to wine, back in the early days but the ancient Hungarians the Huns never did this. In Hungary it was Ányos Jedlik who mixed carbon dioxide with water and created the so called szódavíz effect which was then used to water down wine, it must been around 1840 according to some records when the first fröccs was made. It German speaking countries they refer to it as: Schorle (Germany), Spritzer (Austria) and of course in Hungarian it´s called fröccs. For simplicity I leave things this way and don’t get into much detail. Only this there are a lot of different versions of adding water to wine 3 (decilitre, dl) wine to 2 water would be the big fröccs, or 1-1 small fröccs and so on. My favourite and only fröccs which I would ever drink is actually the Russian: to 2 dl sparkling water you add 1 dl of tap water. Yes, you can sense my humour and sarcasm.

Fröccs is no good, or is it? If yes, I´m trying to find out why and what makes it good? Why would you want to drink the wine with sparkling water together in one glass? Diluting your wine? Doesn’t the wine already have plenty of water in it (ca.70-80%)? Wine makers are actually trying to get rid of the water and if they have to (let’s say vintage was bad) some even use techniques like reverse osmosis. By adding sparkling water to it, you diluting your flavours, the aromas, (esters), alcohol, acidity and basically everything for which the wine maker actually worked for.
Can you actually taste the wine once you watered it down? Certainly not, try it by having wine vs. wine added sparkling water to it. Which goes better with food?

This is by the way one major problem in Hungary people don’t tend to drink wine with food, at least it’s getting better nowadays but there is still room for improvement. Look at the Italian or the Germans. Yes the Germans, who actually got this dreadful idea to Hungary (or was it the Austrians, you tell me…), they match the food with wine, just well. “Riesling goes with everything.”

Now, my question time continues I just pause for a moment. I was having a conversation with a former college of mine (Italian wine maker) at the table with good wine and food (as it suppose to be) and I mentioned him the success of this fröccs festival in Hungary. It was a great success indeed, wine makers made their profit and people were happy. So why am I against this I was trying to find out once again? My Italian friend made an interesting point. “You don´t encourage the wine maker to actually make better wine, cutting down on yields for example, achieve concentration. You dilute his wine, so he could also dilute his own wine by making simply more…”. Exactly! You don’t enhance flavours by adding sparkling water to it.
In a whisky (e.g. Single Malt) you could add a tiny bit of water (still water!, best would be probably the same water which was used to create the whisky/single malt) as it was made cask strength and it would release the tight flavours and enhancing aromas, flavours. Reducing the alcohol a bit as well.

But in wine? No such thing happens, try it out for yourself.  Why was it a success? It bothers’ me when people ruin a wine culture on purpose (e.g. the communist), like with fröccs and even some people who’re possessing a little bit of authority in the Hungarian wine business (e.g. marketing board) are jumping on the band wagon and promoting, sprkling water with wine, like there would be no tomorrow. You drink this chilled same as let’s say, Coca Cola, a Coke would certainly not pleasant to drink it around 16°C, neither would be a sparkling water with wine. The reason? Ain´t refreshing. Ah, refreshing must be the key word, you drink it because you need to be refreshed. Now, aren’t there any rosés, decent sparkling wines, light white wines in Hungary? Certainly they’re…still don´t know why people are hooked on it. Why not add to wine ice cubes then, it´s also refreshing or a splash of something else refreshing (maybe a Coke?!), you name it. You think it adds flavour to it and you want to taste the wine? Certainly, but what wine once it is diluted…The fröccs event could have been also a success as 1 dl of wine was not more then 100 HUF (less then 0,50 €), price matters and the major issue in Hungary is to find a decent wine in the shop for 3-5€ (ca. 1000 HUF) is getting very difficult.

This is the main reason in my book, why people tend to enjoy wine with sparkling water. By watering it down the faults go unnoticed, it´s refreshing because of the sparkling water (szódavíz) and you can drink more. You don´t encourage quality wine making by supporting people to add water to the wine, simple wine making fact.

Wine culture says otherwise you enjoy the wine and water separately, side by side perhaps but not mixing it together (most common wine fraud, actually) in one glass. Or is your wine not good enough to enjoy it pure? Appreciation and focus has to be individual for water and wine and not fröccs!

Tags: froccs

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