- Aszú: This is the wine which made Tokaj world famous and is proudly cited in the Hungarian national anthem. The original meaning of the Hungarian word aszú was "dried", but the term aszú came to be associated with the type of wine made with botrytised (i.e. "nobly" rotten) grapes. The process of making Aszú wine is as follows:
- Aszú berries are individually picked, than collected in huge vatsand trampled into the consistency of paste (known as aszú dough).
- Must is poured on the aszú dough and left for 24-48 hours, stirred occasionally.
- The wine is racked off into wooden casks or vats where fermentationis completed and the aszú wine is to mature. The casks are stored in acool environment, and are not tightly closed, so a slow fermentationprocess continues in the cask, usually for several years.
- The concentration of aszú was traditionally defined by the number of puttony of dough added to a Gönc cask (136 liter barrel) of must.[3] Nowadays the puttony number is based on the content of sugar and sugar-free extract in the mature wine. Aszú ranges from 3 puttonyos to 6 puttonyos, with a further category called Aszú-Eszencia representing wines above 6 puttonyos.Unlike most other wines, alcohol content of aszú typically runs higherthan 14%. Annual production of aszú is less than one percent of theregion's total output.
It is not known for how long vines have been grown on the volcanic soil of the fork of the rivers Bodrog and Hernád. This predates the settlement of the Magyar tribes to the region.[3].According to legend the first aszú was made by Laczkó Máté Szepsi in1630. However, mention of wine made from aszú grapes had alreadyappeared in the Nomenklatura of Fabricius Balázs Sziksai whichwas completed in 1576. A recently discovered inventory of aszú predatesthis reference by five years.
Tokaji wine became the subject of the world's first appellation control, established several decades before Port wine, and over 120 years before the classification of Bordeaux.Vineyard classification began in 1730 with vineyards being classifiedinto 3 categories depending on the soil, sun exposure and potential todevelop noble rot, botritys cinerea, first class, second class andthird class wines. A royal decree in 1757 established a closedproduction district in Tokaj. The classification system was completedby the national censuses of 1765 and 1772.
In 1920, following the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a small part of the Tokaj wine region (approx. 1.75 km²) became part of Czechoslovakia, while the rest became part of the Republic of Hungary. After World War II,when Hungary became a Soviet-influenced state, Tokaji productioncontinued with as many as 6000 small producers, but the bottling anddistribution were monopolized by the state-owned organization. Sincethe collapse of the communist regimes in 1990, a number of independentwineries have been established in the Tokaj-Hegyalja region. Astate-owned producer continues to exist and handles approximately 20%of the overall production.
Famous consumers of Tokaji
In 1703, Francis Rákóczi II, Prince of Transylvania, gave King Louis XIV of Francefrom his Tokaj estate Tokaji wines as a gift. The Tokaji wine wasserved at the French Royal court at Versailles, where it became knownas Tokay. Delighted with the precious beverage, Louis XV of France was offering a glas of Tokaji to Madame de Pompadourentitled "Wine of Kings, King of Wines" ("Vinum Regnum, Rex Vinorum").This famous sentence is used to this day as a marketing device forTokaji wines.
Emperor Franz Josef had a tradition of sending Queen Victoriaas a gift Tokaji Aszú wine every year on her birthday, twelve bottlesfor each year of her age. By her eighty-first birthday (1900), thistotalled an impressive 972 bottles.
Tokaji wine has received accolades from numerous great writers and composers including Beethoven, Liszt, Schubert and Goethe. The composer Joseph Haydn'sfavorite wine was Tokaji. Besides Louis XIV, several other Europeanmonarchs are known to have been keen consumers of the wine. Louis XVand Frederick the Great tried to outdo one another when they treated guests like Voltaire with Tokaji. Napoleon III, the last Emperor of the French, ordered 30–40 barrels of Tokaji at the French Royal Court every year. Gustav III, King of Sweden, loved Tokaji. In Russia, customers included Peter the Great and Empress Elizabeth of Russia. A newspaper account of the 1933 wedding of Polish president Ignacy Mościckinotes that toasts were made with 250-year-old wines, and goes on to say"The wine, if good, could only have been Essence of Tokay, and thecenturies-old friendship between Poland and Hungary would seem tosupport this conclusion."[citation needed]
Read more about this incredible wine.
No comments:
Post a Comment