Ahh, its’ great to have my mom and stepdad over. It’s beautiful to remember visits and sharing and intimacy. Safe, intimacy, mind you. Masks for sure. Last night was sunny so we could sit out on the porch. But what a fine thing to share with other people, the most primal of other people, here’s what I’ve been doing. Here’s what I’ve discovered. Hey, can you tell me what this is? I suspect you’d know.
Among the roads not traveled, I have never ventured to Hungary. I seem to recall my best friend had a copy of “Budapest 1900” and we marveled at the photo of the café on the cover, which to us looked so inaccessible and alluring. Closest I came to the country was probably in 1996 when our family visited my sister in the Czech Republic, and though we traveled nearby Poland, I never made it on to Hungary. My mother and sister did. I’m not sure if they had the wine.
Last year in an EMBA course I taught, there was a Hungarian woman. In her paper she analyzed the Hungarian wine industry and made the claim that one hundred years ago Hungarian Tokaji was the must-have wine in the courts of Europe and that while it had slipped from significance during the last century, it was now making a comeback. Unable to physically enter the wine store in town these days I’ve been a bit more playful in how I ask the young sommelier there just what he had that might be interesting.
“Have you got any Hungarian wine?” I asked not so long ago. “Yeah. And it’s good. But no one buys it. Only someone like you would be asking for it.” This week I remembered to try a bottle when we purchased our weekly case. Pajzos Tokaj is dry and earthy and to my mind at least similar to a Gruner Veltliner from nearby Austria. I put Hungary into Google maps just now and considered the region and the journey of Patrick Leigh Fermor and considered for a while just how much I’d like to see not only Hungry but Romania and Bulgaria as well. Odd, to no longer be allowed to travel. It stops you from dreaming.
Saturday, 5/23/20
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