Tokaj & Tokaji

Tokaj is a city in Northeastern Hungary. Tokaji (with an "i" at the end) means literally "something from Tokaj city". The term has come to mean, first and foremost, the world-famous sweet wine called Aszú. Generally, the wine does not originate from city center but a radius stemming from there of about 30 miles. The actually cites where the wine is produced can be found on the bottle labels: Saraspatok, Erdőbénye, Tarcal, Tolcva, etc. These are all cities near Tokaj in which wine is produced under the name Tokaji. This idea is not new, much the same way that "Bordeaux" wines come from miles and miles around the actual city of Bordeaux.

The wine of Tokaj is of such great national importance and pride to Hungarians that virtually all Hungarian homes keep a bottle of Tokaji in a special case or cabinet. Even the national anthem of Hungary sings about Tokaji’s goodness in verse three.

Tokaji Classification

Historically, the Tokaji wine-making region was larger than it is today. The wine produced there was the first to be "classified" in terms of specific vineyards and deriving wine quality with classifications. Each vineyard of Tokaji has a place name of historic origin and owes its name's current use to this classification. Tokaji also accords itself to a very Burgundian model of "lieu-dits", or individual, classified, named parcels, each with many rows and each row or group of rows being cultivated by different producers. Scholars suspect that the vineyards of Tokaj were the first classification of any wine region in the world. Records exist of a classification system created (or at least enacted) by II. Rákóczi Ferenc in 1701.

The original classification was composed of three sections, much like that of the later 1855 Sauternes classifications: 1st growth (and a Premier class off-shoot), 2nd growth, and 3rd growth. The vineyards were subsequently reclassified in the late 1700 and again revised in the mid 1850s. While some scholars equate these classifications to those of 1855 Bordeaux, the way in which the vineyards are shared between different makers and families, much more resembles the classifications of Burgundy.

Unlike Bordeaux’s 1855 classification of vineyards, the individual plots of land in Hungary have changed hands many times, especially during the communist era, and the usefulness of the 1701 classification system as a true testament to a vineyards quality today is suspect. Of the current Tokaji producers, only a few include these classification and vineyard names regularly on their bottles. To this author, while the vineyard names and historic classification are interesting, the use is not wide-spread enough to be informative between brands. Vineyard names seem more a tool for marketing Tokaji to lure Bordeaux and Burgundy cognoscenti by adding perceived importance of place to their bottles.

As part of World War I reparations, parts of Hungary bordering Slovakia and Romania where annexed. To this end, there is now a small patch of land in Slovakia which was historically part of the Tokaji wine region. There, two classified vineyards continue to be make Tokaji today and can legally sell wine labelled Tokaji. This Slovakian wine, however, is extremely rare in the United states and virtually never imported and is not considered as a quality wine by Hungarian experts although quality Slovakian Tokaji is improving and investment is seen in the region.

Many of the classified vineyards do not exist for grape growing today, Many vineyards were not tended properly over the years, were taken over by the government for various uses, including the creation of a national forests! The fact that some companies refer to this classification regularly on their labels is both truthful and misleading. There are classified vineyards that have been replanted and are in use, but unlike in France, laws are not in place enforcing single-vineyard production or labeling. Conversely, with so many classified vineyards out of use (It is likely that 150 of the nearly 300 classified vineyards are not planted with vines today) labeling using the 1700 classification records does little to ensure the consumer of a quality product.