Appellation Article
Tokaji
Last edited on 5/19/2016 by sweetstuff
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The Tokaj lies 240 kms north-east of Budapest, Hungary, situated in the Zemplen Mountains at the confluence of the Tisza and Bodrog rivers. The soil is largely clay or loess with a volcanic substratum. Tokaj enjoys long sunny summers, while dry autumns and the early morning mists, created by the meeting of the two rivers, encourage the development of noble rot on aszu berries.
The Botrytis Cinerea makes the berries dry and shrivel, thus concentrating the compounds and developing the Aszu berries. All of these characteristic elements give the Tokaji wineries their own distinctive and unique terroir
* Aszú: This is the world-famous wine that is proudly cited in the Hungarian national anthem. It is the sweet, topaz-colored wine that was formerly known throughout the English-speaking world as Tokay, which of course is a vairant in orthography of 'Tokaj'.[4]
The original meaning of the Hungarian word aszú was "dried", but the term aszú came to be associated with the type of wine made with botrytised (i.e. "nobly" rotten) grapes, so now it is thought of as meaning 'infected', or similar to the German word "Auslese", meaning 'a selection'. The process of making Aszú wine is as follows.
o Aszú berries are individually picked, then collected in huge vats and trampled into the consistency of paste (known as aszú dough).
o Must or wine is poured on the aszú dough and left for 24–48 hours, stirred occasionally.
o The wine is racked off into wooden casks or vats where fermentation is completed and the aszú wine is to mature. The casks are stored in a cool environment, and are not tightly closed, so a slow fermentation process continues in the cask, usually for several years.
The concentration of aszú was traditionally defined by the number of puttony of dough added to a Gönc cask (136 liter barrel) of must.[5] Nowadays the puttony number is based on the content of sugar and sugar-free extract in the mature wine. Aszú ranges from 3 puttonyos to 6 puttonyos, with a further category called Aszú-Eszencia representing wines above 6 puttonyos. Unlike most other wines, alcohol content of aszú typically runs higher than 14%. Annual production of aszú is less than one percent of the region's total output. edited jht
The Botrytis Cinerea makes the berries dry and shrivel, thus concentrating the compounds and developing the Aszu berries. All of these characteristic elements give the Tokaji wineries their own distinctive and unique terroir
* Aszú: This is the world-famous wine that is proudly cited in the Hungarian national anthem. It is the sweet, topaz-colored wine that was formerly known throughout the English-speaking world as Tokay, which of course is a vairant in orthography of 'Tokaj'.[4]
The original meaning of the Hungarian word aszú was "dried", but the term aszú came to be associated with the type of wine made with botrytised (i.e. "nobly" rotten) grapes, so now it is thought of as meaning 'infected', or similar to the German word "Auslese", meaning 'a selection'. The process of making Aszú wine is as follows.
o Aszú berries are individually picked, then collected in huge vats and trampled into the consistency of paste (known as aszú dough).
o Must or wine is poured on the aszú dough and left for 24–48 hours, stirred occasionally.
o The wine is racked off into wooden casks or vats where fermentation is completed and the aszú wine is to mature. The casks are stored in a cool environment, and are not tightly closed, so a slow fermentation process continues in the cask, usually for several years.
The concentration of aszú was traditionally defined by the number of puttony of dough added to a Gönc cask (136 liter barrel) of must.[5] Nowadays the puttony number is based on the content of sugar and sugar-free extract in the mature wine. Aszú ranges from 3 puttonyos to 6 puttonyos, with a further category called Aszú-Eszencia representing wines above 6 puttonyos. Unlike most other wines, alcohol content of aszú typically runs higher than 14%. Annual production of aszú is less than one percent of the region's total output. edited jht