 Welcome back to Exotic Wine Travel. I am your host, Matthew Horkey. I've got a special guest here today, but I'll introduce her in a second. We're at the Go Volcanic Summit 2019 in Budapest, Hungary. There's over 50 volcanic wines from all over the world, mostly Italy, Portugal, Hungary, Slovakia, Canary Islands, Israel, and France. Israel, France, yes, and from France. So if you're not a wine geek, but if you're a wine geek, you'll know who this is. If you aren't, I'll introduce this as Elizabeth Gabbai, master of wine, author of this book, I'll put it on the screen, the Rosé book, Understanding the Pink Wine Revolution. Cool book, cause actually Cherenia gave some suggestions about some Rosés in there in the book too. So welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you. Cheers. Thank you. Tell me first of all, cause you weren't drinking Rosé before you read this book. Rosé is so trendy now. It's so popular. Why Rosé? Yeah, I mean, before I started writing this book, there was a sort of maverick element to me, kind of like everyone else is drinking Rosé, so I'm not gonna drink Rosé. And I was asked to write this book and my husband's first reaction was, you know, you don't like Rosé. So why are you writing a book on Rosé? And I said, well, you know, I'll write it. And I started off, and then you become hooked quite addictive, you know, people would be sending in, do you want to try this really weird Rosé I found? And I just discovered that there was just so much more potential to Rosé. And the other thing that was really interesting was I discovered that psychologically, most people think of Rosé by color. Yes. And then you started looking at, well, this Rosé is completely different. Why? And so like Hungarian Rosé, a lot of it is crisp, it's fresh, it's fruity, very, you know, really lively. But a lot of Hungarians put sparkling water in for a fresh. Yes, for fritz. And so of course they don't want to make a complicated Rosé. So you have to understand the market that all these Rosés are drunk in. And yeah, so now I don't think the next edition would not be called understanding the Pink Wine Revolution. I think we've moved on. Okay, yes. And I think another book on Rosé would be quirky, geeky. Oh, the kind of stuff I love. They're really, yeah, exactly. You know what's so funny? I like Rosé as a category, you know, bland, easy drinking Rosé can be kind of boring, but when you have some of this geeky stuff, that's really cool. Which you chose for your glass, yeah. Tell me about what. We finished the bottle of the geeky Rosé, yeah. Rosé off the pole, I love it. Tell me, we're here at a volcanic summit. What makes volcanic Rosés unique? Oh, yeah, okay. So until fairly recently, Rosé was Rosé. Yeah. Nobody wanted varietal character. Nobody wanted terroir character. They just wanted Rosé. And in the past few years, people have realized that you have a Rosé, you do not have tannins to complicate it. You have the freshness and the delicacy that allows a Rosé to be mineral savoury. No, this is the sapidot, isn't it? The sapidot. The sapidot character, the saltiness. And because of the delicacy generally of Rosé, it allows the terroir expression to come really shining through and really vibrate the energy of the wine. I mean, it really is, I find quite exciting. So it's not a sweet, fruity, it's some meaningful Rosé when it's on volcanic soil, is it? No, no, no, like this at the Rosatos. Exciting. It is! It's really volcanic, huh? Why should people that frown upon Rosé? First of all, a lot of people drink it, cash or wine drinkers, because it's delicious. Some more serious, serious people say, no, no, I don't want to trade Rosé. How would you convince them, hey, maybe you should start drinking some Rosés? Well, I've tried various methods from bullying, sort of enforcement, but I actually think for me, it's small tasting, small master classes. I mean, Matt and I were together in Puglia tasting Negrimara Rosé. And to be honest, Matt, I felt you were a little cautious about Rosé till you met me and I said, try this Rosé. And by the end of the week, we were all going, well, it's okay, but the Rosé is really exciting. It is, it is. I actually, but actually, so funny, excuse me, because I was not walking up to you yet. I love it Negrimara Rosato. I've always loved it. I think it's the best wine. It's the signature wine. It should be the signature wine. Just signature wine, huh? But if I told somebody that Negrimara Rosé from Puglia is amazing, most people would look at me and go, you have to get them there and you have to get that glass of wine in front of them and you have to show them. And then my other big pet hate is you can show a sommelier. They'll be convinced. You can show journalists. And then the journalists all go back home and they do a cut and paste. This Rosé is pale and fresh. Very, very few journalists will have the confidence to say, you know, this Rosé is different, gastronomic, interesting. And we're going to go for that. This is my high scored wine today. Is that it? At the show, this Rosato. So this Rosato is 1,000 meters high, south facing Etna, Voidode Cavalier, 2016 vintage, so not the current vintage. Okay. And the current release. This is not some sort of archive Rosé and it is a wine. It's fantastic. Let's get into a place if you've been following up, we're so interested into it and you do get a lot of experience in Hungarian wines. Not only just Rosé, but Hungarian wines. Why do you think this country is so interesting for you? Well, I think, yes. I mean, apart from the sparkling wine, water that they put in, I think cake Frankosh is a stellar variety for Rosé. Natural acidity, crisp, fresh fruity, makes really, really good. I mean, even the Rosé Research Centre in Provence regards it as a top variety. Kadalka, which is good as a red, silky tannins, good for Rosé. It has the climate, it has the natural grape varieties, but I would still say there's only a handful of Hungarian producers that are... More serious about it, yeah. What about besides Rosé, Hungarian wines in general, your overall impressions, because you're here a lot, you do a lot of work here? Oh, I think, I mean, I've seen over the past 20 years Hungarian wine is really improving all the time. I don't know, what sort of mafia protection do you give me if I say what I think? Oh, you can... I'll give you... Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll just say protection, yeah, yeah. Hungarian producers are not terribly good at working together. So you can end up with a region that is producing amazing wines and then you think, well, okay, let's move together and let's promote our wines together and it sort of falls apart. So I think a lot of people don't... If I said to you, what does Matra taste like or Eger or Sexard? And most people will kind of go, name me a producer. So this idea of regional identity and promotion. So Olas Riesling from Balaton Ball, they're doing a lot. Tokai, but the other regions, you kind of feel like guys stop fighting each other, stop being artistic and just sort of identify what you're doing, which is why I think the wines are amazingly well-known, but they give the impression that they're not well-known because they're not very good at... If you're following all my stuff, I'm super upfront and honest about that. That's the hardest, most challenging of all I'm hungry that's keeping the wines from being bad because they're fabulous wines. They're stringable, they're fabulous. They hit the nail around in the head. So you have a new book, you're going to make the second edition of the book. Where else can we find your work? Your website? Yeah, so I occasionally, when I have time, I write my website, ElizabethGave.com, which has musings on things that I'm thinking about. I write a lot for decanto, drinks business, off-license news, website places, the buyer. So largely Anglophone. Okay. And I've just come back from Japan and will be writing about Hungarian wine for the Japanese market. It's the next big thing. Oh, interesting. So I will put the link in the description box of Rosé Understanding the Pink Revolution. Check it out, especially because Rosé's so popular. Get into it, understand it. I have to say one thing honestly to Elizabeth, we meet lots of masters, wine's traveling the whole time. One of the most gracious with her time. One of the most humble. Somebody that doesn't look down upon us common people. So thank you so much for being on the show. I really, really appreciate it. It was wonderful to see you. And I guess check it out, guys. If you liked this video, check out the book, check out her website and please subscribe to our YouTube channel, Exotic Wine Travel. I will see you at the next episode.