I have hated and despised Siofok since coming to Hungary. If you love gich and techno music and feeling like a sardine, it is the place for you, but not for me. This weekend, thankfully, was different. I went down to a rented house near Siofok in Balatonszeplak with Bottlehugger Ben, his family and several other families. The weather was shit, so we all had to keep the horde of kids entertained and I became Dan Bacsi the babysitter. I did not get much reading done on my holiday, but still had a great time playing with the kids. We ate very well, with Ben making bread, waffles, salsa...and drank even better, having taken down a selection of Shiraz wines to try as well as a few bottles of my favorite rose from the Agancsos Vineyard. One afternoon we went to the Galérius Élményfürdő és Wellness Központ for a swim. I was looking forward to a proper swim, but it was impossibly overrun with school groups. Even so, we had a good time, hanging out in the huge steamroom, and teaching the kids to swim. The next day we went to the smaller but quieter spa at Casa Perla. Casa Perla has a jacuzzi built for 10, 4-5 saunas, is quieter by far than the big wellness centers, and for 2000 huf you can use it for the entire day - you can even go home for lunch and come back.

I think the best wines of the weekend were the Tachner rose 2008, Agancsos rose, Ikon kekfrankos, and the Szent Gaal Kastely Badarka. The Hardys Bin 343 2007 cabernet-shiraz from Australia grew on me, whereas the Pannonhalmi Tricollis 2007 and the Tesco South African cabernet-shiraz selection were tablewines.