Hungarian Wine_ Tokaj, Explained

Hi guys and welcome back to another Discover Hungarian Wine Kickstarter update. I just got back from another two-day trip in Tokaj. It's a region that I just love visiting. I was there three or four times last year, this year once, and the next time we're going to be there quite a bit because there's a couple of other producers we have to visit as we finish up the research phase of our book Discover Hungarian Wine. But I wanted to break down in a real basic way the type of wines you're going to find there. You know Tokaj is a region that a lot of people have heard about but a lot of people don't know and even fewer people have tasted and it's a real shame because these wines are just magical. You know it's actually a couple things you have to know. Tokaj is home to some of the world's oldest classified vineyards. The vineyards were actually segregated into kind of quote Grand Cru, first position, second position, third position, so on in the late 1600s, on the 17th century, which is really cool. Super old but one thing you have to know when people put the vineyards up on the labels is there's actually no official modern classification today that's based on old classifications so they use historical vineyard references. So what are you going to find there? Of course Hungary is known for incredible, decadent, butchertized sweet wine but there's also a lot of exciting dry wines being made and some wines in between. So I'm going to give you a little basic breakdown of what you're going to find. First of all grapes. Sometimes you'll see the dry wines labeled varietally, not the case in the sweet wines. They'll always be blends or they won't be on the name. The most common grapes you're going to see are Thurmond. That's the grape that does well, that gets noble rod the easiest. And then Sharga Muscat, Sharga Muscatai, which means yellow muscat. Those are the those are the three that you're going to commonly see the most. There are three other grapes permitted there. You're going to see things like Zeta, Kviselu, and Kabar but those are minor. You don't see those made into varietal wines. So in the dry wines, you're going to see fresh stainless steel wines. Or you're going to see wines that are barrel fermented or aged in oak. And how do you know that? If you look on the label sometimes you'll be able to see the word hordo. Hordo means barrel, so that gives you an idea. Another thing you're going to see for basic wines, you're always going to see varietal names. But for the more expensive mid-range to even expensive wines, they're going to be labeled by crues. And not to confuse anymore, cru in Hungarian is dulu, d-u-l-o with two hashes on top. And if you see a name like this is the Erzsébet Pince Zafir Dulu, that means from the crue named Zafir. And this has formant and it has a couple blend of some other grapes in it as well. These kind of wines are usually going to be labeled by the vineyard name. Okay, so we get the dry wines away. Next you're going to see as a step up and you start to get the sweetness, late harvest wines. And they're very simple, they would say late harvest. Now a thing about in Germany, you can have an Almsleisi, a late harvest wine that's dry, but here in Tokyo they're always going to be sweet. A lot of producers make these because they can make them every single year without having to worry about getting noble rot. And their quality is pretty dependable. These can be absolute steals, really bargain. You know, anywhere in like the 70 to 80 grams of residual sugar. I've seen some late harvest go all the way up to up to 140 grams a liter of residual sugar. Some can be extremely serious. So depending on producer, it's something you check out. The next step beyond that, you're going to see wines labeled as Samorodny. Now this is confusing because Samorodny is actually a Polish word. And they can be dry, which are not made very often anymore. Or sweet, which is most commonly the case. The word for dry in Hungarian is Saraz. And the word for sweet is Edes. So that's what you're going to look for in the bottle. This one in particular, I had one over there. Actually, sorry, this is a different wine. But for most of the time, you're going to see Edes Samorodny, these are like baby Tokayasu. And these are wines that deliver tremendous value for money. They're made with noble rot, the same kind of noble rot you're gonna get in Sauternes up in Bordeaux in France. And they're also barrel aged and they're just incredibly complex, offer tons of value for money if you can get ahold of them. The only problem is they're not exported so often, they're kind of a local thing. The next thing you're going to step up to are the real special wines. The Tokayasu. So a couple things, I know there's a lot of confusing words there. Tokayi, when you add the I at the end of a word in Hungarian, it means a place of origin. So Tokayi, it's a wine from Tokaj. Asu. Asu is the name of the little raisins that shrink when noble rot infects the grape. And you're going to see traditionally, in the past, they could make three, four, five, or six Petunios. So officially the Petunio system has been abolished. Now producers can just name their wines Tokayasu. However, you're gonna see some producers that like to keep the traditions and will still label the wines as three, four, five, or six Petunios. Five and six being the most common. I won't get into the specifics of that, that's something we'll get into in our book. But if you see a Tokayasu, five or six Petunios, you know that it's gonna be sweet, decadent, rich. These wines are 150, 160 grams of baseline residual sugar, and they go up, I've tasted examples up to 280 grams a liter residual sugar. I know that sounds like a lot, but when you actually taste these wines, they finish dry because of the fiery acidity. I can't count on my hand, I can't count how many people I've tasted Tokayasu with, and they say, wow, I don't like dry, I don't like sweet wines, but I like this, I'll take this. So that's really cool. You're also going to get some special and rare wines, and I won't, I'll focus this on, we'll focus on this in the upcoming book, Discover Hungarian Wine. We're gonna see things like Essentia, which is super sweet, super rare, super expensive. Forditas, all these other types of wines, these are very specialty wines, they're kind of a dying fashion, you have to be in the know, but just know that these are sweet wines as well. So guys, check it out, you've got to drink some Tokayasu, the wines can be phenomenal, even in the dry style or the sweet style. Make sure to back our Kickstarter, we're going to have lots of recommendations, breakdowns, help you understand and get into the essence of what Tokayasu is really about. So stay tuned, we're going to have lots of recommended producers, recommended wines for you to try, but we've got to get the book funded first. So back it, check out some of the tiers, we even have one tier with a live experience where we take you to Tokayasu for the day and taste some rare and unique vintages. So that's going to be phenomenal. So stay tuned, share this with your family and friends, and I will see you soon.