The last fifteen years have seen fascinating debates about this Hungaricum: what is traditional Tokaji aszú actually like and how long has it been made?

From World War II till the political changes in 1989 - based on the recipe of the communist-socialist state: drink it or not you will not get anything else - Hungary produced such poor quality aszú that it could not be sold but on the undemanding/ inexigent soviet market. Elsewhere, around the globe the once so famous royal drink was hopelessly written off and forgotten. And while Hungary and Tokaji aszú, among others, was absent from the World Market, other countries, first and foremost Italy, France and New Zealand, started to market wines with the appellation Tokaji. Customers have been so much confused by this development, that from that time on, the appellation Tokaji has not been associated either with Hungary or Tokaj. On the great wine shows of the world the majority of gold medals in the category of noble sweet wines were awarded to the creations of winemakers from Sauternes in France, and the Lake Fertő area in Austria.
The fact that Hungary has made some achievements in this field and no matter how hard but Tokaji aszú is getting back to it feet on the World Market is the result of the efforts of eminent Hungarian vinteners who have raised the initial question: What is Tokaji aszú actually like? Fortunately, there were a few winemakers, who had living memory of the scents and aromas they tasted in their fathers’ glasses and had enough ambition for an attempt to revive and recreate these flavours and aromas. It is not an easy task, and cannot be achieved from one day to another. Old vines had to be found that were grown before the clones developed for mass production. Then vine had to be re-planted on the hillsides that were abandoned during the era of state and cooperative farming. It is in this spirit that the vineyards of Messzelátó-dűlő, Király-dűlő, and Kővágó-dűlő are being replanted on the one hand. On the other hand, investors have come from the west bringing state-of-the-art technology and the latest methodology setting the example for dedicated local winemakers as well.

Why exactly in Tokaj?

To reproduce the quality of times past is not easy, nor would that be absolutely desirable since the world has advanced a lot in the art of winemaking. Nowadays, for example, marketable wines cannot be produced without radical control of vine yields. Instead of grape berries rich in taste and aromatic matter we can only harvest masses if we neglect pruning to the required number of buds and thinning of grape bunches. For the making of aszú – in addition to the traditional pre-war (pre-WW2) technologies – the most recent growing methods and equipment are indispensable. Anyone being shocked that the aromas of present-day aszú are different from what they have been accustomed to can only ask themselves whether they consider the practice of the past fifty years more important than the traditions of the 500 years before?
But why is it exactly in Tokaj, that aszú is formed. Just like the rivers Garonne and Cirone in Bordeaux at Barsac, at Tokaj-Hegyalja (Tokaj-Foothills) the effluence of a cold and warm river: Tisza and Bodrog under Tokaj result in the formation of special fog and mist in autumn. Owing to this Botrytis cinerea mold causing the berries to become „aszú” sets on the grapes and starts the process of „noble rotting”.The process is then completed by autumn rains and finally a nice long indian summer is needed, which is made possible by the protective effect of the Carpathians, for the formation of perfect aszú grapes. Due to the Carpathian rangest he majority of cold fronts arriving from the west in September and October are diverted towards the North-East.
The favourably positioned slopes, the long irradiation period and long autumn – combined with other characteristics of the terrain – create the pleasant microclimate that greatly influences quality.
All this has been said to make you understand that for the production of aszú wine the rotting of grape berries is indispensable. But what is the start date of the history of making aszú?

When does it date from?
The tradition, that the first aszú was made by protestant minister Máté Szepsi Laczkó, and it was offered as a present to Zsuzsanna Lórántffy, Princess of Transylvania at Easter, 1650 is still living. According to the legend, Szepsi, who was managing the Princess’ estate had to postpone the harvest of grapes that autumn as late as November due to the events of war. Due to this berries on the vines shrank and became dessiccated, and the wines made from these berries became more fiery and sweeter. Filled wine-caskets had to be hidden from ransoming Turkish and Austrian soldiers; the valued drink was placed into cellars carved into volcanic rock, or rock holes. The hidden wine in the caskets – thanks primarily to the volcanic tuff of the area and the mold Cladosporium cellare developing in these cellars – matured to become an excellent drink.
As all well sounding legends, this story has lived for a long while, and you can still read it in various publications about Tokaj and the noble wine. Although aszú wine had been made even before that time, the merits of the minister cannot be doubted: in 1623 furmint, the variety yielding aszú in addition to hárslevelű and muskotály(Muscat) was first noted in his parochial vineyard. The first mention of the name aszú can be found in the Nomenclatura by Balázs Szikszay Fabríciusz as follows: „Vinum passum – asszu szeőleő bor”. The book was written in 1570 and published in 1590.
Written proof of still earlier existence of aszú came to light only a few years ago. The historian István Zelenák found an important and interesting document in the Archives in Sátoraljaújhely searching the documents of Zemplén county. Máté Garay, the Tokaj landowner dying in 1571 bequested his estate on his children János and Anna. The agreement of the inheritors, authenticated by witnesses and dated May 15th in the same year partitioning the estate between themselves contains the following in article No. 8. „Towards my noble brother, Janos Garay I am showing my kind sisterly affection saying that for the Seventy Barrel and fifty-two caskets of Asszú grape wine in the Tokaj cellar I do not lay any claim and give it to him wholly”.

This important document came to light only into the year 2000 (publication in full in No. 4 of Borbarát magazine that year- the editor).

In the Footsteps of Galeotto Marzio
The fast growing popularity of aszú was assisted by the common belief, that it contained gold. Seeing the wonderful golden shade of the wine the Italian naturalist, Galeotto Marzio supposed that gold contained in the hill was sucked out by the vine roots and then transferred to the berries, which gave the golden colour of Tokaji wine.
The news raised Paracelsus’ attention, who was perhaps the most renowned alchimist of the age. He visited Tokaj in 1523 and using the local pharmacy as a laboratory he carried out his experiments with musts and wines from the region. He then used his findings in his work DE VITA LONGA (About Long Life). The book was published by the University of Basel in old German in 1527 and it was also printed in Latin translation in Strasbourg in 1603. A copy of this latter publication can be found in the collection of the National Széchényi Library in Budapest. Tamás Dusóczky, Tokaj vintener and Grand Master of the Vinum Regum Rex Vinorum Order of Wine Knights, who spent a good part of his life in German speaking territories, studied the rather clumsy old text for weeks before he found the passages in question. Later he also found the original Old German work by Paracelsus at the library of Zurich University, which cannot be found in Hungary. The passage containing Paracelsus’ observations concerning Tokaji wine is taken from the third chapter of this book. This is how it reads in the original Old German: „Darumb nach der putrefaction das aurum potabile gemacht ist.” which is transcribed into modern German as follows: „Nach der Faulnis ist daher das Aurum potabile gemacht.”that is „ it is through the rot (it may only mean the rotting of grape berries through the action of botrytis- the ed.) that the coming into being of Gold is possible”.
We should not be astonished at the fact that the author here speaks of Gold, since chemical analysis at that time did not even know the basic elements and Paracelsus, for example, believed that the human body was composed of sulphur, salt and mercury.

The secret of aszú: high acidity
There are two methods to make natural sweet wine: either through noble rotting or through the shriveling or desiccation of grape berries. At the time of Paracelsus’ stay in Tokaj aszú was being made there, and it is just the exceedingly high acid concentration resulting from the method of noble rotting with botrytis that creates the possibility for the elixir to be formed so the real solvent is the acid. In pure tokaji esszencia the amount of acids is 20 gramms per litre as opposed to the average 6 gramms per litre value typical of wines. This high acid concentration makes it possible that 1 litre of esszencia can contain as much as 900 gramms of sugar (While 1 litre of water can only solve 650 gramms of sugar).
We cannot know for sure how the wine made with botrytis rotting was called in the early 1500’s. The term aszú is a shortened, simplified form developed over the centuries of the initially used long and clumsy term aszszu szölö bor. (the process of the development of the name is traced extensively in István Balassa’s excellent study of folklore and cultural history: Tokaj-Hegyalja Szőleje és bora (The Grapes and Wine of Tokaj-Hegyalja). Paracelsus’ reasoning – even if he does not use the word aszú – proves, however, that people at Hegyalja had already acquired the art of making aszú by 1523.