Wine Ghosts contact: Instagram:@wineghosts | e-mail: [email protected]

This is the second 'Ghost/Blind Tasting' episode, and this time I chose the variety: Sauvignon Blanc. This one of the most planted and most favoured grape varieties on the planet. You can find this variety in multiple different styles from Chile to the Loire Valley. I've picked these two wines, from the Western part of Hungary and the Eastern part of Austria, because their origins are not so different geographically and climatically, but very much different in terms of winemaking. This great variation shows the great versatility of the 'Old World' Sauvignon Blanc.

As a conclusion:

The Rauch wine from Styria is a typical reductive style, ester-driven aroma-bomb. The newer vintage and the shorter lees contact resulted in a more aperitif-style wine. The Styrian wine had more linear and narrower acidity paired with more green aromas like basil, gooseberry, green beans, Granny Smith apple character. It ran through my mouth like ’cavalry’, but lacks the 'build-up' and the grand texture.

The Gilvesy wine had way more complexity, weight and broader texture. The flavours were more on the white-side: peach, white grapefruit, Meyer lemon, elderflower, daffodil, a spring-like smell. And then in the finish: the typical ’irony-steely-stony’ characters from the volcanic terroir. This wine simply has more potential on a dinner table. It blossoms over time and shows way more versatility in terms of food pairings.

First wine: Gilvesy ‘Mogyorós’ Sauvignon Blanc

barrel fermented (500l Hungarian oak) with indigenous yeast, barrel-aged, extended lees contact

Vintage: 2017 | Alc.: 11,5 % vol. | RS: 1,3 g/l | Total acidity: 7,5 g/l

Second Wine: Rauch Vulkanland Steiermark DAC Sauvignon Blanc

reductive, probably commercial yeast

Vintage: 2018 | Alc.: 12,5 % vol. / RS: 2,5 g/l / Total acidity: 5,5 g/l