 Fight! Fight! Fight! Today we're doing another wine taste-off video. It's Greece versus Slovakia. That's all coming up. Oh, welcome back to Exotic Wine Travel, the show that helps you drink adventurously so you can expand your palate and expand your mind. We have two countries that are expanding palates today. I'm your host Matthew Horky. Hi, I'm Shereen Time. Welcome back to the show. You know, we're getting a lot of great feedback about our wine tasting face-off videos, so we're off to do another one. You ready to get started? You ready to get started? Yes, my hair, before we get started, my hair is getting a little crazy. I know Clive, Kamma, Tatina, other people watching the show. Yes, it's COVID time. I just haven't had time to get it cut. You still consider it COVID time. Your hair is growing out of the frame, actually. I think it's cool. We've got two countries here, real exciting countries, both producing some exciting wines here. We have Greece versus Slovakia. We've been to Slovakia many times. We've got a lot of experience with Greek wine, probably a little bit more so with Slovakia. Two countries that are basically on the opposite spectrum of latitude. Wine grapes traditionally grow between 30 and 50 degrees. North or South latitude. Greece falls down in the 30 degrees. Slovakia is up near the 50 degree mark, right? Greece, even though it's more Mediterranean, produces 70% white wine. I found that fascinating actually. Sometimes even when you taste Greek wine, you find that it doesn't quite tell you that it's a Mediterranean white wine. Because they're the islands, that elevation, stuff like that. Slovakia, I don't know the official figures, but I think it's probably somewhere in there, 66%, probably something like that. Really interesting wines. Two high acid grapes. You're ready to get started here? Very much, please. The first one. This is an estate that I absolutely love. Over 10 years ago, when I tasted my first Greek wine, it was from this winery, Alpha State. This is the Acertico 2018 ecosystem, single vineyard, using my trusty Corvin model, model six now, yeah. To pour this out, we actually have a discount code for Corvin systems and accessories. I'll put that in the description box, but let's get to this. You want to say anything about Acertico? So wait a minute, what was the first wine that you tasted from then? I like Acertico because generally I like a quite aromatic wine, especially those with floral quality to it. So I think Acertico qualifies for that, and on top of that, what are you from, Amy? I was checking it. But I also think that Acertico is quite special in that because it has a very strong mineral quality to it. So you get that mineral flavors, aroma, and you also get a little bit of salinity on the palate. And glass has got acidity. So that makes it quite like a complete white wine. So we're not tasting it side by side, we're tasting one after another. Yeah, one after another. Okay, that's what we did the other. So this, you know, most Acerticos come from Santorini. This is from the mainland up in Macedonia. Emendio is the region, 400 to 600 meters in elevation, like the coolest area actually in Greece. I love this producer. I have never had a bad wine from this producer. So I'm excited to get started. We don't even have a spitter. I was thinking, are you trying to get us to drink this? Okay, let's get started here. What are you picking up first of all? Lemon, minerality, a little bit closer to like a, not really flinty, but more of like a sandy beach sort of smell. Definitely a little bit of peachy tone to it as well, white peach, apple. So you've got your palm fruit. What else do you get? I always think Acertico is like if you could kind of mix aromas of weaseling and some aromatic grape together. A lot of white pear, white peach, the white flour, apple blossom type flavor, nice little yogurt, limey, lemony flavors. What are you thinking on the palate? It's very good. Citrus on the palate, orange blossom. So it's really a mix of citrus, stone fruit, lighter style of stone fruit, flower, mineral. It has everything that's got high acid. Things about Acertico is that they can age. They've got so much acidity. I think that they can age with what we're liking it. Yeah, I like it a lot. Oh, you drank it? And you're right. The end palate kind of reminds you of bristlin because the acidity and the strong flavor, right, has this like whipped inside your mouth, but it pinches your mouth on the inside. It's very good. I think it's really, really, and the thing about Alpha State, you can find them all over the world. They're well distributed and they're just like, I don't think I've ever had a bad wine from Alpha State. I'm digging this so far. I haven't had a sip. That was a good... So that one's good. We'll taste the different. I'll look at it very much. I really like it when acid is high, but balanced by not sugar, but sweet flavor. So it creates this really nice pinch from the taste of your mom and I like that sensation. Oh, great. So we... Shut up. Just continue with it already. We have produced one of your favorite producers, not only in Central Eastern Europe, but maybe you like in general, right? I like the wine maker a lot, and I think it is a very thoughtful, intentional wine maker, and he makes really great wine. This is a Zlatyro Golden Horn. This is the Puerhuegrisling 2019. I forget to say, they both have a couple hours of skin contact. This is all done stainless steel. This is barrel fermented and amphora fermented. Then he blends them. This part of Slovakia is right in the Danube, north of Bratislava, and you look across basically to Bergenland. So it's based on an extension of Austria. You ready to get into this? I'm excited. These wines... Oh, I peeled the wax off to make sure it was a corv. So tit for people while using caravan. Yeah, that's what I do with caravan. If there's wax or foil, I like to peel it off to make sure that this is a natural cork, so I don't jam the needle in and break the needle and cry. If only you cry like that. Okay, so here, these very readable intervention style of re-sling. Low hands off, lots of texture. These wines, this producer is awesome. Only been around for a little bit. I really like to watch. That's just awesome. I love tasting re-sling from all over the world, because I think all of us, if you've been in wine or you drink wine for some time, you have a very classic profile of re-sling that I think everyone can agree on when we talk about classic profile re-sling. So to kind of like venture out of the classic areas, it's always fun to see what other kind of expressions you can have. And there's good re-sling, there's good wines in Slovakia in general. Egan Muller, the famous vineyard wine from the Mosul, has a property we've been to Chateau Bela in Slovakia. You like the Gruner-Veltliner also in Slovakia, right? Yes, I definitely love the Gruner-Veltliner over there, because there are quite a couple of NASA-rated Gruner-Veltliner from Slovakia, and it's so much fun because it's peppery, high acid, and at the same time, let's go back to re-sling. So let's get into this here. Oh, oh, you like already? So floral, like chrysanthemum, camomile, yellow flower kind of tea. Green guava for me. It's a wine with complexity and texture, right? Very much, and it's got a little bit of funk, not in a bad way, and you know how I don't like funky, super funky wine. This is really just a little bit super different, because this is much more on all of the profiles and subtleties put together on a very acidic backbone, whereas this, even though it's re-sling, I find it more vibrant. To me, this is more about intensity. When it comes to nuances, the Greek wine has a little bit more, but when it comes to intensity and fullness, this re-sling actually delivers more. This is much more textured for me, much more textured, but this has some pretty nuances that you kind of have to search out for. Two pretty different wines in terms of whites. I don't know, which one are you preferring right now? Oh, this is really, really tough. Wow. I truly, truly cannot decide. I think really, I mean, usually I have an opinion, it's easy for me to make a choice, but these two are really just kind of in the same league together. Does that mean they're lower quality, medium quality, high quality? High quality. Like I think at 90 point entry level. Yeah, for me, both of them. I do think that this can be a little bit better. I think for now I would pick the Acetico, because it's a little bit more complex, whereas the re-sling might just need a little bit more time to come together. I mean, this is 2019. Guess what? We kind of agree for once here. I think that I actually think that the re-sling is a better wine. Better wine overall in general will last longer. The Acetico right now is just speaking to me. I'm just enjoying these floral nuances. This is also 2019. This is 2018. This is just bottled. This is at a year in the bottle. So, yeah, but basically generally good stuff. You can't lose with these wines in Europe. These wines are like 15 euros, so like 17 bucks retail. I mean, really good wines, right? Yeah, very much. And if you like re-sling, really, this is one wine to stick out because it really does quite a different experience over here. And Acetico too, because Acetico's in Centaurini are starting to go up in price. This is still a good value. Anything you want to add on the face? Was that a successful face-off? That's so good. I'm going to drink a lot of it. Okay, guys. So, thanks for watching, and we will see you at the next video. Go Greece, Yamas, go Slovakia, Yakujem. Yakujem. Cheers. Cheers. Hello. Thanks for watching. Hey, you made it to the end. Make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel. Click the bell so you know when new videos are out. If you like content like this, check out our Patreon page where you get some behind the scenes exclusive content. Thanks for watching. Cheers. Cheers.