Bott-Frigyes, Pinot Noir 2021 (red)
Bott-Frigyes , Pinot Noir 2021
Pinot Noir
Južnoslovenská, Slovakia
“After WWI, Hungary lost around 71% of its territory to Romania, Ukraine, Czechoslovakia (Slovakia), Yugoslavia (Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia) and Austria. Over 3 million ethnic Hungarians found themselves outside of Hungary with significant outcome on the grapes and traditions that never stopped or are now coming back to life beyond the present day borders of Hungary. On the southern slopes of the Mužsla Hills in Slovakia surrounded by the river Garam, Danube and the Ipoly rivers, is one such example: Bott Frigyes. Even the neighboring village of Béla is where Judit and József Bodó of Bott Pince began their winemaking career (ethnically Hungarian but born in Slovakia) before moving to Tokaj. Long story short, a whole bunch of things all came together with Bott Frigyes coupled with great farming, honest winemaking, and delicious wines.
The winemaking is certainly structured in terms of technique, although all fermentations are native, there’s zero temperature control, longer lees aging, natural settling, all oak barrel (some amphora), and bottling unfined and unfiltered with a small amount of SO2 at bottling as the only addition. For the reds, they do use the “Hamburger” method which is essentially alternating layers of whole cluster (foot stomped), topped with whole cluster, then topped with a destemmed and hand crushed layer. This achieves a semi-carbonic quality to the wines without developing too much of the banana or bubble gum often associated with carbonic. For the skin contact whites, it’s often no more than a week, and they are careful to keep it worked over to prevent VA and other flaws. The winemaking overall is tied to tradition but with a nod to modern hygiene in the cellar.
Much like our experiment with Losonci’s Pinot Noir, we were pleasantly surprised with this wine. As many of the Bott Frigyes wines, this was open vat fermented in three layers: foot trodden, whole clusters, and destemmed. Minimal punchdowns and no pumpovers and just under 4 weeks. Basket pressed into 500L barrels it then aged 8 months. Bottled unfiltered and unfined, this has a ton of energy and is slightly richer in weight and texture than the Kadarka.” -Dance and Granger
