The Tokaj Wine Region was covered by the Pannon Sea 10-12 million years ago. In this relatively flat region there was intense volcanic activity; the deposits created and the soil that subsequently developed are rich in porous and minerals.
According to tradition the Celts brought the culture of the vine to this region over 2000 years ago. We know from Árpád Age records (11th-13th century) that when the Hungarians settled in the area they found grapes and winemaking, a practice which which they continued.
This region was to become the cradle of modern winemaking in the Renaissance and Baroque periods. It was the first legally delimited wine region in the world; the individual dűlő (vineyards) were classified based on their characters; and this is the place where the selection of aszú berries was established.
In 1523 the famous Swiss chemist and father of modern medicine, Paracelsus, visited. He was the first to analyse Tokaji wine. In light of his findings he gave the wine the title: “king of wines” to which later Louis XIV replied, “and the wine of kings”.
The winemaking culture spread to many areas of the world from here. Catherine the Great sent Prince Golicin to take vines to the southern slopes of the Crimea, a project assisted by Tokaj viticulturists and winemakers. The successors of these plantations still give one of Russia’s best wines.
General Lazarus von Schwendi took the vines to Alsace. A statue of him still stands in one of the main squares in Colmar. Later Bordaeux winemakers studied Tokaj winemaking and made it their own in Sauternes. Tokaji wine was never missing from any of the tables of the European kings, or from the Papal cellars in Rome. Ágoston Haraszti took Tokaj vines to the Napa Valley in California. With this the modern American winemaking began.
The famous Fugger House sent two bottles of over a century-old Tokaji wine to Polish king Stanisław August Poniatowski for his coronation. It gave the same gift to Franz Joseph I when he was crowned king of Hungary in 1867. These two bottles of wine were worth more than a plot of land in the capital. Tokaji wine was the most expensive wine in the world up until the Paris Exhibition.
We must mention an extraordinary characteristic of Tokaji Aszú; the wine retains its fresh fruit flavours for over 400 years, as the Fugger House bottles prove that were obtained by Stalin at the end of World War II.
The greatest crisis the wine region has experienced was in the last quarter of the 1800s when the root louse Phylloxera destroyed all 9000 hectares of the Tokaj vineyards. This all had to be replanted. Then came World War I and the subsequent Treaty of Trianon which resulted in three villages being separated from the region and assigned to Czechoslovakia. Then followed the Great Depression of the 1930s. The anti-Jewish laws, World War II and the German occupation, then the Holocaust which annihilated the Jewish population of the Tokaj region. Around 20% of the population of the region was Jewish, including many well-trained winemakers and wine merchants with extensive relations to the international market.
After World War II the Rákosi system with its forced appropriation of land and policies that set quantity over quality as the driving force in the area of around 7000 hectares. This strategy caused losses of billions of forints over the following fifty years.
With the change in political system 25 years ago, the Tokaj Wine Region has been rising again. Many efforts have been made to re-establish the place of Tokaj. Thanks to the humility of the winemakers here and their committed work, we are able to stand before you once again with wines that are exceptional and beautiful in every respect to prove: Tokaj is alive again – and it’s shining!
Tamás Dusóczky
Confrérie de Tokaj
Grand maître
