Salt introduced its current tasting menu at the beginning of November, which meant that it had been time to come up with new wine pairings to match the new dishes as well. This, as usual, was preceded by exciting research. Months before the menu change, we had started our journey, visiting wine tasting after wine tasting to find the wines that will create memorable pairs with our dishes. It’s also the time when we continue to enrich our wine list, which now includes over two hundred and thirty items for our guests to choose from.
Máté Boldizsár shared his thoughts about the process and the new wines on our list!
We’re proud that we’ve discovered many exciting new wines, most of which, naturally, are produced by winemakers with an organic approach, whether it’s an unfiltered, natural or classic wine.
I’m not going to have a full list of our new wines here to keep a little bit of surprise for when you visit our restaurant, but I am going to introduce a personal favourite from each pairing to get you excited. Our full wine list can be found on our website, so you can take a look before dining with us.
One of the most exciting wines in our Hungarian pairings is Abeles cellar’s Pinot Gris orange wine from 2022 which you can enjoy with our beet dish (the stars of the dish are the beets, yarrow, and cheese foam made of Transylvanian cheese). Winemaker Imre Halász has been making natural wines on the Somló hill for over 10 years now, however, none of his wines were available in Hungary. Everything got exported… until now.
It’s hard to believe at first that the wine is made from white grapes because, in addition to its vibrant red colour, red berries are also present in its aroma and taste. This grape is a clone of Pinot Gris whose skin contains more pigments than usual, so even a relatively short maceration produces a beautiful colour with refined, silky tannins. It provides vibrant acidity, and fantastic fruitiness, with a burst of flavour when enjoyed alongside your dish. The experience is beyond words, so you need to try it for yourself!
Our organic European wine pairings include a wine made by a French lady, who decided to take over the family winery in Burgundy at the age of 38 after realising that, despite her degree in law and a stable job at a bank, her real calling is in winemaking. She is Elodie Roy, who contributes to our wine list with a fantastic old vine Aligote from 2021. It’s a complex, mineral, fruity wine with a fine barrel creaminess. These notes are complemented by even deeper and richer flavours when paired with our sheep’s cheese puliszka finished with freshly grated Transylvanian churut, which we’ve already talked about on our blog.
I think our prestige wine pairings will continue to be a great choice for anyone. Even though Vincent Girardin’s 1er Cru Chassagne-Montrachet from 2020 is still unabashedly young, it boasts explosive fruitiness, acidity and elegance that can only be enhanced by tasting it with our bread dish, now served with quince compote, pickled elderflower and stir-fried sauerkraut. It’s worth trying the wine separately with each of these complementary dishes – you are in for a real treat! If you don’t believe me, find out for yourself!
