Region: Hungary

Price: $12.99 at Total Wine

Grape: Furmint

Sight: light straw yellow

Smell: honeydew melon, green apple, floral, muscadine, pineapple

Taste: dry,melon, green apple, floral, tropical, spice

Overall: What a little oddball.  Furmint is a grape no one’s ever heard of, and to be honest, I’d never even seen it with my own eyes on a retail shelf.  So when I found it at a Total Wine in Florida (not my home market), I just had to snatch it up and try it.  Though hardly known, the Furmint grape is most recognized as the grape of Tokaji, a type of Hungarian dessert wine not unlike the botrytized wines of Sauternes.  This particular Furmint, however, has been made into a crisp, dry style—more like a Viognier or Sauvignon Blanc.  The bouquet of the wine is a string of tropical aromatics: pineapple, melon, full of flowers.  On the palate, those aromas form the core flavors; the melon flavor dominates, while white flower accents breeze through, and green apple acidity goes straight for the glands.  A white pepper spice throws a touch of heat on the finish.  I think this is beautifully elegant; it’s quite fruity, and even has some aromas in common with Muscadine, but the spice and acidity provide some kind of frame so that it never veers even slightly towards sweet.