🍇 Furmint

Furmint is a white wine grape that the VIVC catalogue lists as Hungarian. It holds a prominent place in Hungary: according to the OIV, it covered 4,000 ha in 2015, or 5.9 % of the country's vineyards.

Furmint's main fame is Tokaj. The technical file of the Tokaj/Tokaji appellation names two main varieties, Furmint and Hárslevelű; Zéta, Kabar, Kövérszőlő and Yellow Muscat are also permitted. Aszú berries, shrivelled on the vine by noble rot, are used for Aszú labelled from 3 to 6 puttonyos. The most concentrated wine, Eszencia, may be made at no more than 1.2 hl per hectare.

The variety's pedigree was traced through DNA: its parents are Alba Imputotato and Gouais Blanc (VIVC). Furmint in turn became a parent of Hárslevelű. It has 158 synonyms, and some sound quite different: in Slovenia it is Šipon, in Croatia Moslavac.

VIVC records 694 ha in Slovenia (2009) and 422 ha in Croatia (2008). In the Slovak part of Tokaj, a "Tokajský Furmint" has to be Furmint with no more than 15 % of Lipovina and Yellow Muscat. In Austria the 2020 vineyard census found only 19.76 ha, mostly in Burgenland.

Why it matters to you. Šipon from Slovenia, Moslavac from Croatia and Furmint from Hungary are the same grape. It makes both dry and sweet wines, so look at the label terms: "Aszú" or "Eszencia" mean sweet wine from Aszú berries. If the grape is named on a bottle of EU wine, it makes up at least 85 % of it. Whites are served at 4–10 °C.