It has been a while I haven’t talked about this beautiful place which everyone who knows me, they know it is my favourite. Not just because it is so close to the town I was born (really just a few kilometers) but because of their delicious sweet and dry wines and main grape varieties, the Furmint and Hárslevelű.
This is one of the most historical wine region in the country being mentioned the first time in 1571 for its wines. And maybe you didn’t know that Tokaj had the first appellation system in the World, dates back as far as 1655 when the first regulations was made about the manual selection of noble rotted (botrytised) grapes. This region is definitely in the game with Sauternes, the Loire Valley and other top sweet wine producing regions.
The region itself isn’t huge, the potential planting area is 11 941 hectares and 9829 of this lies on a first classed slope but only 5768 hectares are actually planted. There is still place to expand but the specialists say it is unlikely that everything will be planted in any time soon.
It is the most northern region of the country, lying on the 48-49° of latitude that will mean a cool climate region, even if now it urges to warmer and warmer vintages due to global warming. Usually it has long sunny summers and dry autoumns with a lot of sunshine. Thanks to the two main rivers close by, the Tisza and Bodrog, at the end of the season, misty fog comes in the morning alongside with the desirable botrytis cinerea aka grey rot (only good when it comes at this time of the year, otherwise in spring time it destroys the vines) which we can call the noble rot and makes tiny holes on the skin. And with the dry, sunny afternoon, through this holes, the grape will dry out and concentrate all the good flavours what we can then enjoy in our amazingly sweet wine.
Probably you already had a deliciously sweet glass of Tokaji Aszú somewhere around the world but from the 2000’s the dry wine making is increasing here with even some great examples of sparkling wines. We can thank again the volcanic soil type that now here too with the help of Furmint and Hárslevelű, it is possible to taste some premium quality dry wines which will give back the characteristic of each slopes and vineyard. Beautifully aged or fresh and young samples can show minerality and ripe fruits with freshness and a long finish sometimes on the same quality level than the Burgundy 1er and Grand Crus!
As you can see I could talk about this region for hours and write hundreds of pages but I have to stop at some point otherwise I will just bore you with the details. At the moment the most important is to look out for this amazing wines and not just the sweet versions but to taste some dry style Furmint and Hárslevelű because it is going to give you a truly memorable experience I can guarantee you!
Written by Eniko Nagy
A great read. So Much history in this region
Thank you Robert! Yes, there is a lot to talk about Tokaj indeed.