Tokaji


Tokaji or Tokay is a rich, sweet wine originating in the Tokaj wine region in Hungary and in Slovakia. This region is noted for its sweet wines made from grapes affected by noble rot, a style of wine which has a long history in this region. The "nectar" coming from the grapes of Tokaj is also mentioned in the national anthem of Hungary.
The Hungarian wine region of Tokaj may use the Tokajský/-á/-é label if they apply the Hungarian quality control regulation. This area used to be part of the greater Tokaj-Hegyalja region within the Kingdom of Hungary, but was divided between Hungary and Czechoslovakia after the Treaty of Trianon.

Cultivation

Six grape varieties are officially approved for Tokaji wine production:
Furmint accounts for 60% of the area and is by far the most important grape in the production of Aszú wines. Hárslevelű accounts for a further 30%. Nevertheless, an impressive range of different types and styles of wines are produced in the region, ranging from dry whites to the Eszencia, the world's sweetest wine.
The area where Tokaji wine is traditionally grown is a small plateau, above sea level, near the Carpathian Mountains. The soil is of volcanic origin, with high concentrations of iron and lime. The location of the region has a unique climate, beneficial to this particular viniculture, due to the protection of the nearby mountains. Winters are bitterly cold and windy; spring tends to be cool and dry, and summers are noticeably hot. Usually, autumn brings rain early on, followed by an extended Indian summer, allowing a very long ripening period.
The Furmint grapes begin maturation with thick skins, but as they ripen the skins become thinner, and transparent. This allows the sun to penetrate the grape and evaporate much of the liquid inside, producing a higher concentration of sugar. Other types of grapes mature to the point of bursting, however, unlike most other grapes, Furmint will grow a second skin which seals it from rot. This also has the effect of concentrating the grape's natural sugars. The grapes are left on the vine long enough to develop the "noble rot" mold. Grapes then are harvested, sometimes as late as December.
Typical yearly production in the region runs to a relatively small.

Types of Tokaji wine

  • Dry Wines: The fine quality dry Tokaji Furmint is a relatively new development in the region. For centuries the main product of the area was the sweet wine, mainly the Botrytised selections. The dry Furmint drew the attention of wine connoisseurs and experts of the world when the Úrágya 2000 single vineyard selection had been introduced by István Szepsy. The wine expressed great minerality, complexity and structure, which has been experienced only in the finest white wines of historic regions like Burgundy or the Mosel before. The aging potential was also promising. In 2003 more producers of Mád village produced single vineyard selected dry Furmint wines with great success. Mád village with its almost 1200 ha had the opportunity to produce high quality dry Furmint wine in significant quantity as a commune level wine, which can express the unique volcanic terroir of the region, this wine is named after its appellation Mad and produced by István Szepsy Jr. in the Szent Tamás Winery.
These wines, once referred to as common, ordinárium, are now named after their respective grape varieties: Tokaji Furmint, Tokaji Hárslevelű, Tokaji Sárgamuskotály and Tokaji Kövérszőlő.
  • Szamorodni: This type of wine was initially known as főbor, but from the 1820s Polish merchants popularised the name samorodny,. What sets Szamorodni apart from ordinary wines is that it is made from bunches of grapes which contain a high proportion of botrytised grapes. Szamorodni is typically higher in alcohol than ordinary wine. Szamorodni often contains up to 100-120 g of residual sugar and thus is termed édes. However, when the bunches contain less botrytised grapes, the residual sugar content is much lower, resulting in a száraz wine. Its alcohol content is typically 14%.
  • Aszú: This is the world-famous sweet, topaz-colored wine known throughout the English-speaking world as Tokay.
The original meaning of the Hungarian word aszú was "dried", but the term aszú came to be associated with the type of wine made with botrytised grapes. The process of making Aszú wine is as follows:
  • * Aszú berries are individually picked, then collected in huge vats and trampled into the consistency of paste.
  • * Must or wine is poured on the aszú dough and left for 24–48 hours, stirred occasionally.
  • * The wine is racked off into wooden casks or vats where fermentation is completed and the aszú wine is left to mature. The casks are stored in a cool environment, and are not tightly closed, so a slow fermentation process continues in the cask, usually for several years.
  • Eszencia: Also called nectar, this is often described as one of the most exclusive wines in the world, although technically it cannot even be called a wine because its enormous concentration of sugar means that its alcohol level never rises above 5-6 percent. Eszencia is the juice of aszú berries which runs off naturally from the vats in which they are collected during harvesting. The sugar concentration of eszencia is typically between 500 g and 700 g per litre, although the year 2000 vintage produced eszencia exceeding 900 g per liter. Eszencia is traditionally added to aszú wines, but may be allowed to ferment and then bottled pure. The resulting wine has a concentration and intensity of flavor that is unequaled, but is so sweet that it can only be drunk in small quantities. Unlike virtually all other wines, Eszencia maintains its quality and drinkability when stored for 200 years or more.
  • Fordítás:, wine made by pouring must on aszú dough which has already been used to make aszú wine.
  • Máslás:, wine made by pouring must on the lees of aszú.
  • Other sweet wines: In the past few years reductive sweet wines have begun to appear in Tokaj. These are ready for release a year to 18 months after harvest. They typically contain 50-180 g/L of residual sugar and a ratio of botrytised berries comparable to Aszú wines. They are usually labeled as késői szüretelésű wines. Innovative producers have also marketed tokaji wine that does not fit the appellation laws of the above categories but is often of high quality and price, and in many ways comparable to aszú. These wines are often labeled as ''tokaji cuvée.''

    Imperial Tokay

Prior to 1918, the finest eszencia Tokaji was not sold but was reserved for the Imperial cellars of the Habsburg monarchy. By the mid 18th century these finest eszencia Tokaji originally held by the Habsburgs were called "Imperial Tokay". Cases, barrels, and bottles of it often passed between European monarchs as gifts. In 2008, a bottle of Imperial Tokay bearing the seal of the wine cellar of the Royal Saxon Court sold at auction at Christie's for £1,955.

History

It is not known for how long vines have been grown on the volcanic soil of the fork of the rivers Bodrog and Hernád. This predates the settlement of the Magyar tribes to the region. According to legend, the first aszú was made by Laczkó Máté Szepsi in 1630. However, mention of wine made from aszú grapes had already appeared in the Nomenklatura of Fabricius Balázs Sziksai which was completed in 1576. A recently discovered inventory of aszú predates this reference by five years.
Tokaji wine became the subject of the world's first appellation control, established several decades before Port wine, and over 120 years before the classification of Bordeaux. Vineyard classification began in 1730 with vineyards being classified into three categories depending on the soil, sun exposure and potential to develop noble rot, botrytis cinerea, first class, second class and third class wines. A royal decree in 1757 established a closed production district in Tokaj. The classification system was completed by the national censuses of 1765 and 1772.
In 1920, following the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a small part of the Tokaj wine region became part of Czechoslovakia due to the Treaty of Trianon, while the rest remained part of Hungary. After World War II, when Hungary became a Soviet-influenced state, Tokaji production continued with as many as 6,000 small producers, but the bottling and distribution were monopolized by the state-owned organization.
Since the collapse of the communist regimes in 1990, a number of independent wineries have been established in the Tokaj wine region. A state-owned producer continues to exist and handles approximately 20% of the overall production.

Famous consumers of Tokaji

Voivode Stephen the Great of Moldavia was said to be a very big fan of Tokay wines. He introduced to Moldavia the Kövérszőlő cultivar, that lead to the development of Grasă de Cotnari wine.
Tokaji has since the 18th century been known as "Vinum Regum, Rex Vinorum", an epithet sometimes attributed to King Louis XIV of France. In 1703, Francis Rákóczi II, Prince of Transylvania, gave Louis XIV some Tokaji wine from his Tokaj estate as a gift. The Tokaji wine was served at the French Royal court at Versailles, where it became known as Tokay.
Emperor Franz Josef had a tradition of sending Queen Victoria Tokaji Aszú wine, as a gift, every year on her birthday, one bottle for every month she had lived, twelve for each year. On her eighty-first and final birthday, this totaled an impressive 972 bottles.
Tokaji wine has received accolades from numerous great writers and composers including Beethoven, Liszt, Schubert, Goethe, Heinrich Heine, Friedrich von Schiller, Bram Stoker, Johann Strauss II, and Voltaire. The composer Joseph Haydn's favorite wine was Tokaji. Besides Louis XIV, several other European monarchs are known to have been keen consumers of the wine. Louis XV and Frederick the Great tried to outdo one another when they treated guests such as Voltaire with Tokaji. Napoleon III, the last Emperor of the French, ordered 30-40 barrels of Tokaji at the French Royal Court every year. Pope Pius IV at the Council of Trent in 1562, exclaimed: Summum pontificem talia vina decent! Gustav III, King of Sweden, loved Tokaji – it has been said he never had any other wine to drink. In Russia, customers included Peter the Great and Empress Elizabeth of Russia. A newspaper account of the 1933 wedding of Polish president Ignacy Mościcki notes that toasts were made with 250-year-old wines, and goes on to say "The wine, if good, could only have been Essence of Tokay, and the centuries-old friendship between Poland and Hungary would seem to support this conclusion."
Grand Rabbi Shmuel Schneersohn of Lubavitch was known to drink Kosher Tokaji wines on celebratory occasions, such as on completion of his famous series of discourses titled "Vekocho" in the year 1878.