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Wine list at Divino Wine Bar
Needless to say, I had neither the will nor the skill to learn Hungarian for a three day trip. But I did want to try the wine! And damn, but those wine lists were hard to read…
The trick I settled on was to simply look for the grape varietals and/or the regions. I created a cheat sheet (as a note in my phone) listing the common grape varietals and the most prominent wine regions. I’d pull that as reference when someone handed me a wine list and would scan it just looking for those keywords.
See, even wine lists in English are inconsistent with how they list wines… some restaurants list wines by the grape, some by the region and some by the producer. Some group their wines by color, others by style, others by region and others as a combination of all three. So you can’t necessarily rely on the way a list is organized to help you!
Instead, doing a little bit of research on the wines of your destination, and creating a simple cheat sheet for yourself, will pay off in dividends.
You don’t want to have to Google search every wine on a foreign list to see what it is, and you might not even have the cell service to do so! Instead, know what the general style of the grapes and regions are ahead of time and just look for those.
If you have the time (and linguistic capabilities) to learn some key wine phrases, you can get even farther… For instance, when visiting Sicily, I knew that most local restaurants would have more than one Nero d’Avola on their list, and that that grape can be made in lighter or fuller styles. So I learned how to ask “che è più pesante: questo o quello” meaning “which is heavier - this one or this one?” Then I could skim through the (many) Italian words I did not understand, simply look for the keyword ‘Nero d’Avola’, and ask the waiter to point me towards the style of my choice.
Some questions I find helpful to look up translations for ahead of time are:
- Which is heavier - this one or this one?
- Which (red or white) wine do you recommend?
- Is this wine made in a traditional style?
- Could I order a bottle of this?
- I’d like a glass of this
And, it sounds obvious, but know how to refer to ‘red wine’ and ‘white wine’ in that language! Sometimes it’s intuitive (vino rosso, vin rouge) but sometimes it’s not (rotwein, vino tinto, vörösbor).
And taking that a step further, know that a region may refer to a grape that you’re familiar with by a very different name. You might spend a whole week in Germany drinking Spätburgunder having no idea that it’s Pinot Noir; or enjoy Cannonau while touring Sardinia, oblivious to the fact that it is Grenache!
Point is, a little bit of research can set you up for a lot of clarity! Look up all these translations ahead of time and add them to the cheat sheet on your phone for easy reference.
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