Adam Aceto

founder of the "Friends of the Tokaji"

Adam Aceto grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His first visit to Hungary was in 1997. After spending a year in France in 2001, his interest in fine food and wine became a life's passion and he began study of fine wine and food in earnest. While living in Detroit and amassing moderate wine cellar, Adam discovered Tokaji and learned of its neglect. Encouraged by a group of wine-tasting friends and a local restaurateur, Adam began to collect Tokaji, both new and rare bottles. In researching its history, Adam discovered how little was known about Tokaji in the United States, even by industry professionals, and how tarnished its reputation had become during Hungary's communist occupation. Encouraged by the overwhelming response of friends and first-time tasters, Adam went to Hungary to meet with wine makers and to see first-hand how the wines of Tokaj are made today. He has become an important link between the thriving European market and the budding American market for this historic, beautiful, and delicious wine. Adam has studied at the Culinary Institute of America and has earned degrees from the University of Michigan School of Music. He is a noted pianist and theater conductor and is an expert in the field of American Operetta.

The Story Behind the Founding of "Friend of Tokaji" Website

(transcribed from an interview with Suzanne Urpecz, "The Hungarian Girl", on August 18, 2009)

"I first learned about Tokaji in the winter of 2006. I had started getting really interested in buying and collecting Bordeaux and I found a book on wine, I think it was the "Time-Life" series of all things at a friends house among a series of cookbooks published in the same set. It was published in the 60s maybe and it was an interesting perspective on wine since it hadn't been updated over the years as many more "professional" wine resources are. I wish I still had it, but it had a section devoted to elaborate menus and how to pair wines. This was amusing and informative. Amusing since all the wines were from the 50s and 60s, hence would be an absolute fortune now-a-days. Informative since I used to host these elaborate dinner parties (PJ called it "über-Chef) and have very similar pairings to the book. First-growth Bordeaux, White Burgundy, Sauternes, Rieslings, vintage Champagne - many many bottles throughout the course of a dinner. Everyone always had a marvelous time. (A little too marvelous some mornings-after.) I had tried everything in the book and regarded this little book very highly since California-Australia-New World wine didn't exist in any real way yet, it was totally Euro-centric and I loved it. The only thing I hadn't had was Tokaji which the book praised highly, and since I agreed with everything else in the book, I knew this was right up my alley. There were even pictures of the old Monimpex Export bottles with the "Wines of Hungary" label which doesn't exist any more. So I sought some out. Found some in the strangest of places; old hole-in-the-wall liquor stores, backs of shelves, here and there. I had a wine tasting dinner; I don't even remember who was there except Pat and maybe one or two others. We opened a bottle of what I think was 1996 Royal Tokaji, 5p. It had a slightly damaged cork (which I would later find out ALL of them had that year) so the wine was slightly prematurely oxidized (which made it even more old-style, like the book described) and we tasted, I believe as an aperitif, on its own. Took a sniff, excitement in the air. I went crazy. It was amazing. Unlike any other wine, obvious nose, so many flavors, eye-opening. This was the turning point and I found every book I could find on the subject, searched out every bottle I could get my hands on. I was so excited, I had another dinner and invited some more friends soon after. We had Disznoko 1998 4p. They went crazy. All everyone talked about was how sexy the wine was. Which is still true. I kept buying. So one night Larissa asks me if I want to go to this Hungarian restaurant "down river" in Detroit. It's kind of a drive and a hassle to go there so I asked her to call and find out if they had Tokaji. They said yes, so I said, in that case, I would go. To make a long story short, we got there and the had this amazing collection of old bottles - no one ever ordered it. So we used to go there every month practically until I moved to California last year. We got to know the owner very well and eventually he sold me his entire collection from home dating back to the 60s! Very very fond memories. Dinner with friends, my brother visited and fell in love with Tokaji there. There are many more memories about going out to special places, finding special bottles.

So from that first visit on, we probably called or visited every Hungarian restaurant in the US and Canada to see if they had Tokaji, first of all, and to evaluate the food. Larissa also got in the habit of going to virtually every liquor store under the sun - even if it looked like an absolute dive - and low and behold, she's found some very interesting bottles along the way. 2 bottles of 1982 Nemes Kadarka (although not Tokaj) stand out in my mind, for $6. We would go to all the Hungarian churches and cultural centers and chat with folks and go to concerts. So after a while we could only gather so much information in the States and as thorough as we were, there was so much misinformation in print it was confusing, and I had a notebook full of questions which only the folks in Tokaj could really answer. So we decided to go to Hungary and meet with the folks from Tokaj Renaissance. They invited us to their semi-annual meeting and we spent the day there tasting, pressing, all that. So many tourists go to Tokaj and know virtually nothing, it was important for me to go and get the "professional" tour. (even then, so many of the makers where not used to anyone asking technical questions - and would start by giving us the usual spiel of how the grapes are mostly Furmint and Harslevelu...) So we decided to go as American Friends of Tokaj." -Adam Aceto, 2006.