Last month I had the pleasure in attending two tastings - Georgian wine tasting and Hungarian wine tasting. The first one was quite small organised at the Royal Horticultural Conference Centre in London, a short walk from Victoria. The second one was at One London Wall, Plasterers Hall. Both these tastings have been organised with some sort of government support as far as I understood from the winemakers and interestingly enough, they were just a few days apart from each over. Hard work these wine tastings are I must say and that is not a joke. I cant imagine the professional judges and wine masters that have to taste a lot of wines every day. For a few days after each tasting my palate was destroyed - everything just didn’t taste as it should have tasted.

Oh well, I probably shouldn’t complain that much, but lay down my impressions of the tastings themselves.

The Georgian wine tasting had about 8 different producers and the majority of them represented indigenous grape variety wines - with a focus on Saperavi for the reds and Tsinandali for the whites. Tsinandali is a cuvée of Rkatsiteli and Mtsvane. I cant say that I am a big fan of Saperavi though as its a bit too peppery for my taste, yet that is just my personal opinion. The Tsindali or even the pure Mtsvane are more interesting and I could have them on any sunny day - floral and aromatic. Rkatsiteli is an interesting grape that grows well in Moldova too, out of which is made the Cricova Gratiesti dessert wine that is getting increasingly more and more attention. Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera with me, so no pictures from the event, but if I am to describe in a few words it as a whole - it could have been organised better.

The Hungarian wine tasting on the other hand was a much bigger and very well organised event with seminars and talks by experts, including Caroline Gilby MW.

Luckily this time, I was armed with my camera, so I took a few shots as you can see below.