Ep 521: The Greats -- Tokaji Aszú

Wine for Normal People

As part of the series on the The Greats (the great wines of the world), I cover the complex world of Hungarian Tokaji. As with all dives into “The Greats,” I spend the first half of the show delving into the history of Tokaj and then discuss winemaking, the grapes, and the complex way in which this wine is made.

Some notes that may be hard to understand (since I obviously know no Hungarian!):

The main grapes in the wine are:

• Furmint (Foor-mint) 60-70% of Tokaj plantings
• Hárslevelű (Harsh-level-loo) -- 19% of plantings
• Sárgamuskotály (Sharga-moose-kah-tie) - 9% of plantings (Muscat Lunel, Muscat Blanc à Petits Grains)

Secondary grapes are: Zéta (Oremus), Kabar and Kövérszőlő (Koo-ver-sue-loo)

And just a few words on the wines:

Tokaji Szamorodni (sam-or-od-nee) can be dry or sweet. It is made from bunches of grapes with a high proportion of botrytized grapes. These are bunches, not individual berries.

Tokaji Aszú is the world-famous sweet wine. Aszu contains exclusively all botrytized grapes, individually hand picked, trampled, and then turned into a paste/dough. The wine is then macerated in must, wine, or partly fermented must, still fermenting must or wine from the same vintage. Aszú ranges from 3 to 6 puttonyos, which indicates sweetness levels

Tokaji Eszencia: Is one of the most exclusive wines there is. Eszencia means nectar. It is the free run juice of botrytized aszú berries. It is so sweet that the alcohol doesn’t usually exceed 5-6%.

I hope you enjoy this overview of the Great that has one of the longest recorded histories of winemaking!

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