🍷 Tokaji

Tokaji is the wine of the protected designation of origin Tokaj in north-eastern Hungary, made in 27 municipalities at the foot of the Zemplén Mountains. Its rules know eight wine types and a sparkling wine, from dry whites to aszú made from berries shrivelled by noble rot. The EU has protected the name since 2006. ¹³

Where it comes from. The vineyards lie along the Bodrog and Tisza rivers at 100–300 m above sea level, mostly on soils of volcanic origin, and only plots rated Class I or II in the vineyard cadastre count. ¹ The specification gives a mean annual temperature of 10.8 °C and 525 mm of rain; the wetlands by the rivers and regular autumn weather favour noble rot, Botrytis cinerea. UNESCO inscribed the region's landscape in 2002: 13,245 ha of core area and 88,124 ha together with the buffer zone. ⁶

Eight types. Eszencia needs at least 450 g/l of sugar and aszú at least 120 g/l. Dry szamorodni has at most 9 g/l, while sweet szamorodni, fordítás, máslás and late-harvest wine need at least 45 g/l; the eighth type is a white wine. ¹² Fordítás is made by pouring must or wine over pressed aszú paste, máslás by pouring it over the lees of aszú or szamorodni. Tokaj sparkling wine ferments only in the bottle and stays there at least nine months, 90 days of them on the lees. ¹

How aszú is made. Aszú berries shrivel on the vine under Botrytis cinerea, are picked by hand berry by berry and must reach at least 45 refractometer per cent of sugar. ¹ They are soaked in must, partly fermented must, new wine or wine of the same vintage, and the wine then ages at least 18 months in wooden barrels. It may be sold no earlier than 1 January of the third year after the harvest. ² From 100 kg of aszú berries at most 6 litres of eszencia may be made, and no more than 220 litres of eszencia, aszú and fordítás together. ¹

What the rules forbid. For aszú, eszencia, szamorodni, fordítás and máslás the specification bans raising the alcohol, sweetening, acidifying or deacidifying and bottling outside the region; the white wine may not be sweetened either. ¹ Only six grape varieties are allowed: Furmint, Hárslevelű, Kabar, Kövérszőlő, yellow muscat (Sárga Muskotály) and Zéta. Every type except the white wine and the sparkling wine must be picked by hand. ²

Bottle and label. Aszú, eszencia, szamorodni, fordítás and máslás may be sold only in the Tokaj bottle: colourless glass with a long neck and fixed proportions of 1:2.7 and 1:3.6, usually 0.5 l, but also 0.375, 0.25, 0.1875 or 0.1 l. ²⁴ The vintage on the label is compulsory, and at least 85% of the grapes must come from that year. The words «3–6 puttonyos» are optional, and «6 puttonyos» is allowed only from 150 g/l of sugar. ²

History in dates. The specification dates the region's first rules on viticulture to 1561 and the first written mention of aszú to an inventory of the Garay family of 15 May 1571. ¹ In 1737 a decree of Emperor Charles VI declared Tokaj a closed wine region, one of the first legal delimitations of a wine area in the world. ⁶ In 1970 the name was registered under the Lisbon Agreement, and in 1993 an agreement with the European Community reserved it for Hungary. ¹

Tokaji or fortified wine. Fortified wines belong to the EU category of liqueur wine: neutral alcohol or a grape distillate is added to them, and their actual strength must be 15–22%. ⁵ The Tokaj single document lists only two categories, wine and sparkling wine, and raising the alcohol is forbidden. ¹ The sweetness of aszú therefore comes from the berries alone: its actual alcohol need only reach 9%, and eszencia has just 1.2–8%. ²

Why it matters to you. Read the type name rather than the number of puttonyos: aszú always has at least 120 g/l of sugar, and «szamorodni» alone does not say whether the wine is dry or sweet, which is why the label must add száraz or édes. ² Aszú and eszencia may contain up to 400 mg/l of sulphur dioxide, and sulphites must be named on the label. ¹¹⁰ Sugar does not soften the alcohol: WHO notes that drinking carries health risks even at low levels. ¹¹