Budapest International Wine Festival

During our pre-trip "what is there to do in Hungary" research we learned the following:

1. There are 22 wine regions in a country slightly smaller than Indiana.

2. There are almost twice as many places in Hungary where you can go birding.

We concluded therefore, that wine was going to play an important role in our travels. To our great luck the Budapest International Wine Festival was going to be in full swing when we got here which would kick things off right! And boy oh boy did we have a doozy of a first day. I mean that in a good way.

Our apartment is on the Pest side of the Danube and the festival took place on the Buda side, at the palace which overlooks the city. We spent the morning slowly sauntering in that direction. We walked along to the river past the Parliament building, through the touristy pedestrian street Vaci Utca, stopped in a cellar wine shop for a little pre-festival tasting, ate salami and cheese baguettes and crossed the Elizabeth Bridge just south of Castle Hill. To get to the Buda Palace you can walk up a long steep path or take a funicular, Switzerland style, to the top. We walked.



The views from the top are breathtaking. From there you've got a 180 view of the Danube below and all of Pest with its mixture of old and new buildings. Budapest is very romantic looking with its ornate Parliament building flanking the winding river, church and temple steeples that give it eastern flair and the grand Chain Bridge perfecting the image of a classic European city.



With our festival entrance ticket we received a tasting glass in a cotton pouch that hung around our necks. Currency within the festival consists of tickets which you can purchase as you go. Each ticket is worth about 50 cents and a tasting of food or wine costs anywhere from 1-12 tickets. Food is more expensive. The festival was pretty empty at this point, as we arrived shortly after it opened. Immediately we felt overwhelmed at the number of wine stands, mostly because we had no idea how to differentiate between them as all the signs were in Hungarian. We knew about a few wine regions because they were part of our second week's road trip plan and so we sought out wine stands that had one of these familiar names in the sign: Tokaj, Eger or Villany.



We shyly sidled up to the first stand and asked for a taste of the rose. The guy didn't really speak English and so we took our pink pour and moved along. Next we hit up the first food stand of the day which contained a wide array of french cheese and some platters of Hungarian antipasti. I couldn't resist a simple tooth-picked chunk of Camembert and Gombasalata- salad made with at least ten types of small wild mushrooms, while Jonny opted for fetas paprikas nov olajban--a couple grilled yellow peppers filled with cheese and soaking in olive oil.

We munched and gained confidence as our first glass of wine went down, then hit up stand number two, Valibor Winery, from the Northern Lake Balaton region of Badascony. We chatted with a nice woman who spoke English and educated us about boy grapes and girl grapes. Keknyelu a white Hungarian grape is a girl and Budai Zold, also white, is a boy. Both wines were crisp and perfectly delicious on such a hot day. She also told us that her region was starting to harvest this week and would be beginning the grape crushing process next week. We may end up changing our itinerary to stop there.

We continued on, wandering through the cobblestone paths and passed another food stand filled with our first vision of hot Hungarian specialties.



Jon almost fainted. Everything had pork in it and was covered with mustard and sour cream. He could not stop commenting with admiration that "these people" know how to eat right. These comments were always punctuated with a knowing smile in my direction that "these were my people." I quickly realized that these people may be more Jon's than mine. He felt right at home with the pork trotters and sausages. I must also admit that I did feel quite comfortable with the amount of sour cream being served.

To summarize the rest of a very long and wonderful day:

1. We spent eight hours tasting wonderful wine and our ability to communicate with the people at the booths some how improved with every glass.



2. We took a short interlude during the day to explore the National Gallery which was included in our ticket price and was housed in the Buda Palace.



3. We ate the following: pork sausage with bread and mustard, Hungarian green bean casserole, stuffed cabbage with ground pork and sauerkraut made with pork trotter meat (slow cooked pig feet) doused with sour cream, and toast with truffle butter and truffle cheese.



4. We were unfortunately too stuffed to eat these things by the time we found the stand: huge latkes smeared with sour cream, massive pickles from a barrel and slices of bacon two inches thick.



5. By the end of the day the whole festival was packed with people and music was playing from two different stages.



6. We got a free t-shirt from a winery that says "I love Egri Bikauer" (Bull's Blood)

7. I hate to admit it, but we stopped for a chocolate souffle and a nightcap at an outdoor cafe on the way home.

Needless to say, after 8 hours of drinking, jet lag, and a long walk home, we hit the hay pretty hard when we got home.