Hungary’s luxury winemakers are not yet giving France a run for her money, but a few are catching up in at least one important area of Bordeaux-style marketing: en primeur sales, meaning the practice of selling certain wines before they are physically released onto the market. One such winemaker is Attila Gere, whose signature Kopár (it refers to a vineyard in Villány; that’s a pic of one of our own ’99s) has be wowing local and foreign wine buffs since the 1997 vintage. Unfortunately, if you want to be wowed by the 2004, you’ll have to act soon, because it’s only being sold en primeur for the next two weeks. (You can place orders via the website of the Bortársaság (wine society) which will throw in a 1.5 liter magnum if you reserve 24 bottles before October 15th.) But like they say on the late-night TV ads, best to act now, because yields were low in ’04, and 2005 was apparently a wash.
