If we can blame our absence yesterday on anyone but ourselves, the blame would fall on one of our esteemed advertisers, leading Hungarian wine producer/wholesaler/retailer Monarchia, which on Tuesday hosted a tasting of 92 wines at the Búsuló Juhász Étterem. If you didn't know, búsuló juhász means "sad shepherd," and after the tasting, we were kind of sad, too, and not just because of our terrible, two-day hangover.

So here's the deal. Because the folks at Monarchia are pals/patrons, and we are the only food and wine publication in town that really goes out of its way to be independent, we were secretly hoping that at least a few of the wines on show would be dreadful. That way, we would have a reason not to write about the event, and thus not appear like we were sucking up to a sponsor.

But no such luck! For sure, not every one of the 20, 30 or however many wines we tried were perfect. But damn if the stable of wines shown at the dejected sheep-herder didn't have a single dog in it. At the same time, the lack of bad wines makes it sort of hard to pick out wines that we would say offer special value or thrills. (Though the off-dry red "Kadarissima" from Géza Balla in Transylvania and a barrel sample of the latest "Nimrod" prestige cuvee - named for Monarchia supremo Nimrod Kovács - were certainly memorable, even in our degraded state.)

Speaking of tasting fatigue, several of the bor-pros we talked to at the event said they had reached their limit in terms of tastings and wine festivals, with every year bringing more and more events. And with Hungarian wine seeming to get better with every year, it's becoming almost impossible to spit any of it out.