| Modern day Szigeti (pronounced ZIG-it-ee) was born when brothers, Norbert and Peter Szigeti, returned to their hometown of Gols to take over the family business in 1990. The brothers use a deceptively simple approach to making high quality, affordable sparkling wine. They insist on using only the finest grapes from carefully tended vineyards and generate a firm bubble using the Méthode Traditionnelle (highly labor intensive bottle fermentation process). The wines acquire a distinctive mousseux due to the use of yeasts indigenous to Champagne, France. The dosage are typically made with local sweet wine. The winery philosophy is succinctly listed at the top of Szigeti's letterhead: "Traditional bottle fermentation * Unmistakeable fizz * Unique character." The third concept, unique character, is most meaningful. For Szigeti, the process of method traditionnelle must not trump the integrity of the fruit. In other words, the dominant perfumes and flavors of the wines should be of the varietal, and should not be masked at all by the yeasty, fermentive flavors of secondary fermentation in bottle. Though such a goal is often in place in still wine production, in the production of sparkling wine it is surprisingly unusual. As a test of this philosophy, Szigeti crafts sparkling wine from a dozen different varietals and the hallmark of each is varietal expression. No better example of this exists to introduce this philosophy than the Grüner Veltliner Brut. |
