Tokaj Aszu wine

A natural dessert wine of exceptional quality. Amber coloured, it is made in a special way from the botrytised grapes (dried, with concentrated sugar, acid, and flavour content) of furmint and hárslevelu (linden-leaf) vines. Often the wine is made from the grapes of a single vineyard. Generally a beautiful sultana and honey nose and a lingering finish are characteristic of this wine. Aszu stands out among dessert wines also for its moderate but stable backbone. Following a long vatting period, the wine continues to mature in the bottle for decades, remaining stable.

Tokaj is a collective name used to designate the deservedly world-famous wines produced in the region around the foothills of Tokaj Hill (Tokaj-hegyalja). The grapes, growing in volcanic soil and a unique microclimate, are handled with a skill rooted in centuries of experience, resulting in these internationally acclaimed wines: szamorodni, furmint, hárslevelu, and yellow muscat (sárga muskotály).

The most famous speciality of the region is the Tokaj Aszu; vinum regum, rex vinorum, 'the wine of Kings, the King of wines'. The first Aszu was made in the 1630s.

Under favourable weather conditions, the skin of ripe grape berries burst open and a noble rot sets on the berries. The mould, botrytis cinerea, is responsible for the special fermentation of the Aszu. Aszu is made from these grapes, handpicked from the furmint and hárslevelu grapes when the harvest starts, traditionally in the second half of October. The special grapes are collected in vats (puttony) and trampled until they reach the consistency of a paste, which is known as Aszu dough. A wine or must is poured onto the Aszu dough and, after soaking, the wine is pressed and poured into smaller oak barrels where fermentation is completed and the Aszu wine is matured. Aszu wines are rated according to the quantity of Aszu dough used to one 'gönc' barrel of base wine (136 litres): 3, 4, 5 or 6 butt (puttony) Aszu wines.

Aszu wines mature for a minimum of 3 years, of which at least two years is in wooden barrels, before they reach the market.

Anatole France once exclaimed when tasting a bottle of Tokaj wine he had been given as gift: "What a happy land it must be, where such honey-sweet springs erupt from the powdery Mother Earth! What good humoured, balanced, and healthy people must live there! What passion! How much culture, faithfulness, friendship and intelligence!..."

The best known line of a poem to Aszu is found in the Hungarian National Anthem, written by Ferenc Kölcsey: "On Tokaj's vine stalks you have dripped nectar."