Tag Archives: Eger

Eger

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Just east of the Mátra mountains is the lovely little town of Eger. While it is recognized for its castle and baths, our main purpose for visiting Eger was to go to St. Andrea winery for a tour and tasting. The region is well known for its wines, but is particularly famous for its “Bulls Blood” red wines. In 1552, 80,000 Turks were advancing toward Eger. Just 2,000 Hungarians, led by Dobó István and including women and children successfully defended the Eger castle. The story goes that during the battle, the Hungarians were drinking the Eger red wine for strength, but all the Turks could see was that the Hungarians had dripping red beards, stained swords and faces. The Turks thought that the Hungarians were drinking bulls blood and were so shocked and scared that the mighty magyars were able to defeat them.

St. Andrea winery is located outside of Eger on a beautiful hillside. We were all very impressed with not only the incredible wines, but with the philosophy of the owners and winemakers. Our guide, Tamás, spoke about how they are searching for the truth in the process, or as he said “the way”. And that more important than selling a million bottles of wine, they want to make a great wine that people appreciate. The tasting was wonderful in addition to the wine, cheese and bread with oil and balsamic vinegar. Inspired by his wife and muse, Andrea, Dr. György Lőrincz’s wines are (like the name of one of his white wine’s suggests) blessings in bottles.

And finally, after the wine tasting, we went back to Eger for dinner right next to the castle at a great restaurant called Imola. The restaurant was recommended by St. Andrea herself, and the food was wonderful. We ordered ham and cheese plates, gulyas soup, beef cheek, stuffed peppers, trout, veal stew and duck. And we were so stuffed from the wine and food that we couldn’t even order desert. So despite the trickling rain and cool weather, it was a beautiful September 1st in Eger.

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Taking the Wine to Go

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As there are only a few more weeks until I go home to America, I’ve been slowly compiling my little stacks of things to take home.  Unfortunately, there’s nothing more Hungarian than the wine, and basically it’s what everyone wants.  We recently went to the wine shop and were determined to not buy more than six, as we’re only taking two bags to America.  Of course we bought ten, so we’ll see if I survive the stress of packing.

Luckily, according to the US Customs website, there is no limit on how much alcohol you bring through the border, only you have to pay a tax for anything over 1 Liter.  But I don’t think it’s that much.

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We are bringing, of course, the classic Tokaji desert wine, said by many experts to be the finest desert wine in the world.  And we have a few other bottles from the Tokaji region, though they are not the sweet, desert wine.

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I’m probably the most excited to take home the Eger Bikvér wine, which is commonly known as “bull’s blood.”  The reason for the name?  In 1552 Turkish soldiers (approximately 150,000 of them) tried to siege the Eger castle (defended by a mere 2,000 Hungarian troops).  During the siege,  the Hungarians drank a lot of the red, Eger wine thinking that it would give them strength for the battle.  From the distance below, the Turks thought that the Hungarians were drinking goblets of bull’s blood (especially since it was spilling all down their beards and armor) and were so demoralized that they abandoned their siege, which resulted in stopping, for a brief time at least, the Ottoman Empire’s advancement into Western Europe. 

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Of course most of the wines making the trip are just simple wins that everyday people enjoy.  This rizling, for instance, from the Lake Balaton region, which is light and fruity and perfect for summer.  Most of all I’m just looking forward to sharing some of the great Hungarian wine culture with the people I know, especially my family members who, despite some of them being Hungarian, never realized what a great tradition of viticulturists they come from.