Coup de coeur – Szent Donát Liebling Kékfrankos 2018

If you have lost faith in kékfrankos this is the wine to put the smile back on your face. On the face of it, there is nothing special about it, it’s just a young wine made in steel tank. But when you taste it, it stops you in your tracks.

What a heavenly perfume: succulent cherries accompanied by spices and hints of cherry blossoms. It’s fresh as a daisy, cool as a cucumber. If ever there was a wine that managed the conversion from grape juice to alcohol without loss of data then this is it. And then this glorified sour cherry juice has put on layers of spices, flesh and tannin. It’s utterly beguiling. If kékfrankos can be so thrillingly delicious then there is no excuse for the decades of misfiring.

This is the wine I’m going to present as a gift for the winemakers we visit on our summer holidays. 6-7 points and at 9 euros it’s definitely great value.