Category: Hungary

Wine of the Year: Saxum, James Berry Paso Robles 2007

I believe it is the first time since I know it– though it might well be first time ever–that Wine Spectator’s top 10 is dominated by New World wines. The winner is Saxum, James Berry Vineyard Paso Robles 2007, “[a]n amazing wine, dense, rich and layered, offering a mix of power and finesse, with concentrated dark berry fruit, mineral, sage, herb and cedar notes that are pure, intense, focused and persistent.
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Albert Einstein Bizottság: Szerelem

I don’t think it has occured to any of you that simulated maximum likelihood OX programs, which often take days to converge (given I do not–yet!– have the parallel computing power I would love to possess…), run much faster if in the meantime one listens to Albert Einstein Committee’s brilliant music.
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The hard road to Transylvania

4 hours inside a KLM/Malev plane that just wouldn’t take off at Schiphol (after 2 extra hours of waiting for the– eventually, wrong– plane to arrive); a (involuntary, for a change) night spent in beautiful but frozen Budapest (helped by the fact that my friend Balint was very inspired for the dinner suggestion; even the house white wine was very decent!–
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Klausenburg, anno 1865

WHEN you leave Szamos Ujvár, the road passes straight over a plain, with little or nothing to relieve the monotony. A Hungarian village or two, a nobleman’s mansion with the surrounding farm-buildings,-that is all, until the tall spire and the various towers of Klausenburg rise before you.

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