Undoubtedly, Tokaj is the best-known Hungarian wine, and its reputation precedes many other world-famous dessert wines from France and Germany.
The history of the region and its beauty are such that UNESCO decided to add it to its world heritage site list in 2002.
About an hour’s drive northeast from Budapest along the modern M3 toll-highway, the region’s autumns are spectacular. Mornings are shrouded in intense smoky fog, rising slowly form the two main rivers, the Tisza and Bodrog. Then the morning sun disperses it. The combination of moisture and warm autumn sunlight create the ideal condition for botrytis cinerea (noble rot) to develop, and which is called aszu. Tokaj wine represents a distinct viticultural tradition that has existed for at least a thousand years, and has survived intact until now.
Single vineyards were identified and classified even before the Douro region in Portugal, also France, well before the latter was even aware of the importance of terroir.
Here the soils are heavy clay in the north; around the town of Tokaj loess dominated. Hillside vineyards have good drainage.
The wines of Tokaj can be either a blend of any amount of four permitted grapes, or consist of any one variety.
Furmint is the most important variety, planted on approximately 70 percent of acreage. It ripens late, is susceptible to noble rot, with a vibrant acidity.
Harslevelu (lindenleaf) yields soft, very aromatic, floral wines. Muscat de, Lunel or Yellow Muscat is often employed to enhance the aromatic profile of aszu (sweet) wine with its characteristic pungency. It ripens before Furmint and Harslevelu and is often used as the dry wine base for sweet Tokaji wines.
Zeta (formerly known as Oremus) is the least important of all the grapes and occupies approximately one percent of the vineyards.
Tokaji wines come in three styles – dry, late harvest and Tokaji Aszu. Each style has its distinct flavour profile and production technique.
Szamorodni (dry) wines are produced from ripe and botrytis affected grapes. It may be marketed after a mandatory one year barrel aging, or used as a base wine for aszu wines.
Late harvest Tokaji wines are a new category and vinted from super ripe grapes, some of which show botrytis. The must is fermented until yeasts stop converting sugar to alcohol. Late harvest wines need no barrel aging, but must
be produced from one grape variety only.
Tokaji Aszu are the sweet nectars that earned the region its world-wide reputation. The complicated and labour-intensive production has changed very little since its invention some 350 years ago.
Starting early October, the botrytis cinerea affected grapes (here called aszu) are picked berry by berry, and collected in wooden hoppers called puttony, with a capacity of 25 kgs. This labour-intensive process continues until late November.
These sugar rich grapes are kneaded to a mass pulp, and kept for 24-48 hours in an attempt to increase their flavour and aromatic intensity. Anywhere for three to 6 (75 – 150 Kgs) puttony of aszu berries are added to a dry-fermented base
wine from grapes harvested earlier. The addition of sugar-laden aszu berries restarts and/or prolongs the fermentation.
The traditional winemaking-vessel in Tokaj is the short and stout 136-litre gonci barrel, and this serves as a base quantity to the puttony additions. The more puttony of botrytis affected grapes a gonci receives, the sweeter the wine will
become.
A three puttonyos aszu contains 6 – 9 percent residual sugar, four puttonyos 9 –12, 5 puttonyos, 12 – 14, six puttonyos 15- 18.
The epitome of aszu wines is called essencia. Containing more than18 percent residual sugar, and is produced by leaving botrytis-affected grapes in a quill basket where the natural weight of the fruit presses the sweetest imaginable must. This extremely sweet must (80 percent sugar) ferments very slowly and yields such an aromatic wine that it can perfume a 9’ ceiling 2500 ft2 room for hours on end. Essencia wines rarely exceed 3 – 5 alcohol by volume.
Essencia is one of the longest-lived wines in the world, and can be aptly described as nectar of the gods.
During soviet times, Tokaji wines were produced using oxidative technology.
Today most wineries prefer fruity, vibrant and fresh wines that compel consumers to enjoy this truly magnificent wine with gusto!
Russians like oxidized wines, possibly they were exposed to oxidised wine due to poor technology, or ignorance. This started to change since the Soviet Union collapsed and the new generation of Russian wine consumers are young.
Dry Tokaji wines go well wit mildly spiced cold cuts, breaded deep-fried fillet of sole or baked herring.
Late harvests are best with ripe seasonal stone fruits and blue cheeses (Roquefort, Stilton, Bleu de Bresse, Danablue, Gorgonzola).
Aszu are best on their own with ice cream bombes, parfaits, Sicilian cassata, berries with sabayon, or even with seared goose liver.
After the soviet regime collapsed several western French, Spanish, Italian and English interest bought land and/or wineries in Tokaji to capitalize on the fame and quality of this unique region and its inimitable wines.

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Tags: Sweet wine, TOKAJ-HEGYALJA

This entry was posted on Friday, November 6th, 2009 at 06:00 and is filed under Food & Wine. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.