A little while ago I attended a dinner at Sotheby’s, the New York auction house, to promote the sale the next day of a large collection of wines from Vega Sicilia. The evening featured, of course, a generous selection of that famed estate’s famous wines – Unico, Reserva Special, Valbuena, Alion and their newest offering from Toro, Pinita.

However the wine that caught my attention because I had never encountered it before was a white wine, the Oremus Mandolás from Hungary. What sets this wine apart and makes it so unusual is that it is a dry wine made in the Tokaj region from the furmint grape. Now, both that region and that grape are best known for the famous sweet dessert wine, Tokaji, though if this wine is anything to judge by, the situation likely to change quite dramatically in the future.

In the early 1990’s Hungary’s historic wine industry was in a terrible shape after 45 years of communist neglect, and the new government, anxious to revitalize the business, invited various foreign winemakers, including Vega Sicilia,  to invest in the privatization of the former government monopoly. Hence was born the Oremus winery.

I assumed that the dry white, the Mandolás, was a sort of afterthought but I was mistaken – it makes up a full 40% of production which shows that the owners are serious about making this dry white from Hungary a viable commercial proposition.

And tasting the Oremus Mandolás 2006 ($25) I can only conclude that they are onto a winner.

It’s dry, vigorous and crisp, a big, mouth-filling wine packed with the rich fruit flavors of pineapple and clove-studded pears, with this spicy, aromatic quality making it an ideal companion for Asian food.