Tokaj-Hegyalja

The glory of the thousand years old Tokaj viticulture is underlined by the fact, that no wine market may have a reputation in the world, without offering a selection of Tokaj wines. There is a proverb since the Middle Ages: the Tokaj wine is "the wine of the kings, the king of the wines" ("Vinum regnum - rex winorum").

The tent-formed cones of the Zemplén mountains emerge above the alluvial plain of the Bodrog river. The hillsides are dissected by steep gorges and escarpments. The vineyards lay on the southern and eastern foothills, but also the high slopes of the hills, even the top of the Kopasz hill were cultivated by terraces, earlier.

The region is producing exclusively white wines. Its leading grape varieties are the Furmint, the Linden-leaf, end (in a less extent) the Muscat lunel. In the last years also Chardonnay has been involved into the cultivation, although it is forbidden to bring in at the market as "Tokaji".

The typical dense, heavy, highly acidic Tokaj wines were fermented and aged in the previous centuries among oxidative conditions. In addition to this traditional way of winemaking, also reductive wines appear in the last ten years, with a convincing high quality, in the frames of the so-called "Tokaj Renaissance" campaign. Although these wines are more rich in aroma and fragrance, than the traditional ones, they miss the typical "Tokaj bouquet".

The dry and sweet "Szamorodni"-wines, as well as the "Aszú"-wines are made by adding different quantities of noble rotten grapes. These wines are considered as those, which are possessing the highest concentration of alcohol, acidity and residual sugar among the wines of Hungary. The "Aszú-essence" and the "nectar" are delicate sorts of drink, whose residual sugar content is often reaching 50%.

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