Notes, stories, and photos from another great day tasting in Tokaj, Hungary
Tokaj, Hungary
Tasted Thursday, September 27, 2012 by David Paris with 1,709 views
Introduction
My first trip to Tokaj in July of 2011 was one of the highlights of my wine explorations. I loved how we were able to interact directly with the families responsible for producing these wonderful wines. That day was not only what really began my initial detailed acquaintance with the wonders of this region, but also the moment I fell in love with it. What began as an opportunistic exploration of what's local on a business trip turned into a fascination and affinity with the wines and people of this region. When co-workers Gabor and David expressed interest in traveling there this year, arrangements were made and Gabor spearheaded conversations with the wineries and set an itinerary. This year I combined my business trip with a few days vacation with my wife Natasha, for our wedding anniversary. My intention on this trip was to visit my favorite spot from last year, and then explore additional new wineries.
Flight 1 - Árvay (3 Notes)
The only "must re-visit" spot from last year, Árvay not only offered the most consistent lineup from my 2011 tour, but also the most hospitable environment. Though we did not learn our lesson from last year and again scheduled this visit first, so I wasn't sure how much wine to purchase. Everyone enjoyed kicking things off at Árvay, but perhaps we should have arranged to circle back after the day's close and fill our bags with whatever room was left with Árvay wine.
I was pleased that Angelika Árvay was able to host us again, and with the lineup presented showed that there really is something special happening at Árvay Pincészet. Angelika spoke about the farming practices a bit more this year. While they aren't certified Organic, it sounds as if all the practices are organic. She relayed a story of using an orange zest based spray which caused some amusing comments from the vineyard workers. They have also begun experimenting with biodynamics, as Angelika is studying the techniques and preparations and always has a biodynamic calendar around for reference. All the wines are spontaneously fermented as well, which was another refreshing thing to hear.
Flight 2 (1 Note)
A volcanic rock from the vineyards (perhaps Istenhegy ?) with the fossil of a fish in it! 
Gabor striking two of the rocks together from one of the vineyards and smelling the flint. It was amazing how flinty this rock was! You can definitely imagine how these soils impart unique characteristics to the wines.
A word about the 2010 vintage. The eruption of the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull caused havoc to the weather in 2010; this area usually sees about 600mm of rain a year, but in 2010 there was over 1000mm! As a result, the vast majority of wineries around Tokaj didn't even produce any 2010 wines. We talked to several wineries who said they sold the whole lot of fruit. Others only made a few dry wines. Everyone was down on the year... Árvay somehow managed to make some of the most spectacular young, mineral and acidic driven dry wines I've had, especially from a QPR standpoint. I would have inquired more about how they did this in 2010, but at the time of the visit I hadn't heard just how down everyone else was on 2010. In such a wet year one may expect the wines to become lean and acidic, which is where my palate tends anyway. However, these wines had some of the most balanced, impressive texture I've come across. Sure they showed ripping acidity, but the palate presence, body, and fruit balance is what really made this a breathtaking vintage here (check out the extract figures). Angelika kept mentioning how it was the special vineyard sites that they have that allowed this in 2010... based upon the discussions elsewhere, this doesn't seem to just be lip service.
Flight 3 (4 Notes)
Angelika showing us where the Köves vineyard is on a map.
Flight 4 (2 Notes)
Before we dove into the Aszú wine, Angelika pulled out a jar of Aszú berries to show us. These berries are picked one by one from botrytis effected clusters, an obviously labor intensive venture. It was really cool seeing these dried berries in the flesh. We got to try some of them and they were absolutely delicious. Very unique, and nothing like I had before. They had a nutty, earthy flavor to them, in addition to the expected typical dried fruit sweetness. Others found the seeds distracting, and I certainly do with regular wine grapes, but these added to the enjoyment, and weren't as woodsy in character. A real pleasure to get to munch on these. 
Natasha holds some Aszú gold.
Flight 5
Having brought a 12 bottle shipper with me to Hungary and not knowing what lied on the visits ahead, I decided to purchase 7 bottles at Árvay, including two more bottles of the beguiling 1997 Aszú 6 Puttonyos which I was fortunate enough to try on my last visit. I'll include that note for reference sake:
- 1997 Árvay János Tokaji Aszú 6 Puttonyos – Hungary, Hegyalja, Tokaji
This was bottled in 2001, with a mere 600 bottles produced (2 barrels), and less than 80 are left at the winery (and one found its way into my suit case). 1997 was a very difficult vintage, but what was not said was whether or not the belief was that this added to or took away from the quality of this wine. Whatever the case, this was magnificent. The aromas here were massively complex, showing some green fruits, figs, dried apricots, and a smoke character. The palate is rich and complex. Thick caramel, deliciously ripe fruit, pipe smoke and richness, but throughout is maintained a ripping acidity. 200 grams per liter of sugar and the acid is still cutting right through it! The finish is an explosion of rich acids, spice, and minerality. It is sooo good. Acid and spice to die for. I am honestly generally not that huge of a fan of wines at this sweetness level, but this was impressive. According to CT, the second highest rated sweet white wine I've ever had. Sweet wines need acid, and this delivers in a big way. The best wine on the trip.
Sugar: 199 g/l Alcohol: 9.0% Acidity: 14.0 g/l Extract: 55.9 g/l (94 pts.)
Tasted on 7/24/2011 & rated 94 points:
There are now less than 40 bottles remaining at the winery. Looking back, I again regret not purchasing more and figuring out some way to get it home. On this visit, the Köves was a true revelation, and one of the finest dry white wines I've had outside of Burgundy.
This visit was one of those experiences where time moves without even noticing. Before we knew it, two and half hours had passed and despite scheduling in travel time and longer visits, we were already an hour behind schedule. Sitting at the table at Árvay feels like friends sitting around a table just enjoying each other's company over wine. Yes, I will be back on my next trip to Tokaj.
Flight 6 - Királyudvar (6 Notes)
I must admit I became a little intellectually infatuated with Királyudvar when I discovered them... This producer is owned by Anthony Hwang, who later went on to become the principal owner of Domaine Huët, perhaps the top producer in Vouvray in the Loire Valley of France (certainly my top Loire producer). Huët's winemaker, Noël Pinguet, also consults at Királyudvar. On paper this has all the makings of an ideal partnership. While absolutely terroir unique, for me the wines of Tokaj probably closest resemble those of the Vouvray, if one was forced to compare them to something. The Loire is where my mind went when I had my first few great Tokajis. I was able to acquire the 2009 Királyudvar Tokaji Sec earlier this year and upon exploration decided there was plenty compelling here. This was the top producer I had hoped to visit on my return trip to Tokaj. After originally being told they were too busy with harvest to host a tasting, Gabor was able to follow through with someone else and schedule the visit. Fantastic! 
We were greeted by a woman who quickly called Szabolcs Juhasz, the winemaker and oenologist, who was gracious and conducted a tour of the facilities. He didn't speak English so he'd speak Hungarian and then our other hostess would translate (Gabor and David mentioned later that her translations weren't always ideal). We started out in the tank room, where Szabolcs filled us with information about Királyudvar. The winery holds 45 hectares, of which 15 are farmed biodynamically (learned from the Huët connection), and 30 are farmed traditionally. I gather that they are in the process of converting more over to biodynamic viticulture. They have a total production of 30,000 bottles a year, including some sparkling Furmint (made in traditional Champange style), which we saw resting for disgorgement (they also have 2012 base wine for the sparkling in tank):
After this, we walked deeper into the cellar, where they have a neat presentation of the soil types of three of their different vineyards: Betsek (same as Becsek?), Henye, Percze, and Lapis. 
We then walked into the barrel room, where most of the barrels are currently sitting empty awaiting the 2012s. At the time of visit, 45% of the fruit had been harvested from 2012. Since most of these barrels were empty, I asked where they keep the longer aging wines, such as Aszú wine. Apparently there is another cellar for that, but Szabolcs mentioned that 2008 was the last year they were able to produce Aszú wine, and this seemed to be the case throughout the area. So right now there aren't any Aszú barrels. It's yet to be seen if 2012 will produce any, but they're of course hoping. 
The cellar here is over 500 years old. They suspect these cellars were built in the 13th century, and have documentation of its existence dating to 1431! At one point this cellar was owned by the Hungarian King, and then given to a noble family. Apparently this winery and these cellars later provided wine to the Habsburgs. Pretty amazing stuff. After this interesting tour of this history rich place, we headed upstairs for the tasting, and Szabolcs Juhasz went back to work elsewhere. On the way up, I snapped this awesome shot of a thermometer and hydrometer buried in the black mould on the wall; what rich color! 
The tasting experience here was incredible odd. We were placed in this fairly large, stale white empty room, with the heaviest chairs on the planet. I'm serious, these things were solid pieces of wood that you could barely move. Our tasting was guided by two women, both of whom spoke decent English. They'd tell us a bit about the wine, but after pouring it they'd just stand there, hovering over our table not saying anything. They weren't talking amongst themselves... just standing there staring at us. It was very difficult to relax and experience the wines with this hovering going on. We all felt very awkward, and I didn't feel free to talk about the wines. Once the last person was about to finish each wine, our hostess would grab another wine, introduce, and repeat the same situation. The whole thing was uncomfortable and felt forced. 
Flight 7
Reading my notes I enjoyed the wines much more than I recall, I think due to the odd hovering people. The tasting experience could have been much better, but right now I have a weird sense of this place. I think everyone else enjoyed the wines even less than I did, and I think that too had to do with the strange setting. At some point during the tasting Anthony Hwang came out and said hello. Unfortunately at the time I didn't realize who it was, or I would have tried to grab a few moments of his time and ask some questions. I'm disappointed to have missed the opportunity. Since most of these wines are brought into the US I decided not to acquire anything. The Ilona was particularly strong. These guys apparently did make wines in 2010, and the Sec came in with some pretty freakish numbers, including 10.5 g/l total acidity, and the Lapis semi-sweet 51g/l RS but 10.3 g/l TA. I definitely will be seeking some of these out as they hit the market. These guys definitely remain on my radar even if nothing blew me away, and hopefully I'll make a return visit here in a few years.
Flight 8 - Zoltán Demeter (8 Notes)
I think I first heard about Zoltán Demeter's by checking cellartracker reviews, and upon doing further research, Zoltán Demeter's name seems to be mentioned regularly regarding Tokaji wine, as he's quite the figure for the region. On this particular day Zoltán was in Budapest showing his wines, but his wife was able to guide us through a tasting and tour. Zoltán Demeter the winery is housed in a historic building built in the 1790s right in the heart of the town of Tokaj. His family also lives on site. They had a very nicely setup tasting room, playing baroque music throughout, which was very welcoming. 
We began by hearing some of the philosophies here. Zoltán is very passionate about restoring the reputation and quality wines to Tokaji. They strictly monitor yields and are all about producing terroir specific wines. She said something hilarious during the tasting, "We make world class wines in Hungary." Basically pointing out that within Hungary people think the wine is world class, but outside Hungary hardly anyone pays attention to it. They want to see that changed. After the two world wars and then communist control, Tokaj lost its traditional markets around Europe and saw continual decline. It's really just been in the last 20 years that a resurgence has taken place, with a few strong leaders trying to return Tokaj to a worldly respected region. They've also only been producing "high quality dry wine for 12 years." Traditionally Tokaji was always a sweet wine; quite interesting considering how good the dry wines coming from the region are now.
Zoltán Demeter holds 9 different vineyards in 5 settlements, totaling 7 hectares. She mentioned that they never do any mallolactic fermentation here. They tried in 2007 but didn't like the results. Interesting, as I gathered that several other producers do. Like Királyudvar, they make sparkling wine here, but here too there was none available to sample. It's very expensive to have a license to produce sparkling wine in Hungary, so Zoltán Demeter produces it at another facility. We also talked a lot about closures, as all but the Aszú wines are under synthetic closures: The low end wines under synthetic cork and the mid-tier and up closed under glass Vino-Seal. The reasoning was basically that as they're trying to restore the reputation of the region they don't want any possibility for disappointed upon opening, such as a corked bottle.
This was another winery that had a "very, very difficult year" in 2010. They produced only one single vineyard wine from the vintage. They decided not to produce most of their wines that year because they thought it would be "too hard to tell our customers why it was different than other years." Again, very interesting considering what spectacular wines Árvay was able to make from 2010.
All of the conversation was very interesting and we appreciated the philosophies here. It was time to see if the wines stood up to the philosophy.
Flight 9
Yes, I was quite disappointed all around. These wines really lacked character as a whole. I was rather baffled how they were so focused on making "terroir specific wines," yet many of these had completely hollow mid-palate and finishes and tasted very international in style. My co-worker, David, who hasn't really been out tasting much actually made the first comment that they tasted like they could come from anywhere. None of us really enjoyed these wines. Nothing was horrible, but also nothing stood out at all. We greatly appreciated the hospitality here, but the product needs to shine through and unfortunately it did not.
We were now a full two hours behind schedule. We had planned to visit another new winery in this slot, Füleky, but it was getting very late in the day. We discussed which to do, the unknown Füleky, or the known quantity of Hudácskó. Since the last two spots I had picked weren't up to my previous experience tasting, and I could tell my companions were also quite disappointed with them, we decided to visit Hudácskó, which I know make very good wines and also have a wonderful cellar.
Walking through the streets of Tokaj
Flight 10 - Hudácskó Pincészet (10 Notes)
It's amazing to think this cellar is only 30 years old, which means it was built under communist rule. They talk about how this is a family run winery, so I wonder under what circumstances the winery was originally built? Currently they have 18 hectares under production. I inquired about the 2010 vintage here as well and was informed that they sold the entire lot of fruit! Apparently the grapes would have resulted in "too low alcohol." Very surprising. 
Flight 11
The lineup...
Closing
With the sun now setting and having powered through lunch to visit as many wineries as possible (and still only made it to four!) we were starving and asked the woman at Hudácskó for a restaurant recommendation. Right on the main road back to Budapest was the restaurant Sárgaborház, which had a great setting, right in the middle of a winery and vineyard. I snapped this quick photo before heading in for dinner:
Overall this trip was a success, though it certainly was less consistent than last year. Our visit at Árvay was even better this year than last though. Even if I didn't have something quite as breathtaking as the 1997 Aszú 6 Puttonyos I had last year, I think the consistency of the wines was even more impressive this year. And to think it was done with the apparently impossible 2010 vintage. The middle stops were up and down, though. I think on my next trip I need to force myself to be more diligent about staying on schedule so that we're able to get more visits in. I definitely don't want to miss out on these interesting tours, but I think having visited a greater diversity of places probably would have relieved some of the disappointment of the middle experiences. I do really hope I'll be able to make a return trip, perhaps next year.
2011 Árvay János Sárga Muskotály Tokaji Angi 86 Points
Hungary, Tokaji
Sárga meaning yellow, this grape is known as yellow muscat elsewhere in the world. The grapes were harvested the 20th of September, tank fermented, and 1300 bottles were filled in July of 2012. The aromas are soft and offer up general green grape aromas, which are a little dusty. The palate is soft, offering a light, but pleasing texture, and flavors dominated by crisp apple. Tart acids on the finish, with some minerality and a slight metallic notion. Coating texture on the finish.
Sugar: 3.7 g/l Alcohol: 13.5% Acidity: 5.6 g/l Extract: 20.7 g/l
Post a Comment / Do you find this review helpful? Yes - No
2010 Árvay János Furmint Tokaji Száraz 91 Points
Hungary, Tokaji
I tried this wine from barrel last year and it was my favorite, non-single vineyard Furmint I'd had. It's an estate blend of 6 vineyard sites, 50% fermented in barrel and 50% tank. This was the first wine today of a fantastic 2010 vintage for Árvay, and offers a very nice stony character on the nose, which is complete and beautifully balanced, showing an impressive, very pretty aromatic texture. The palate is bright, with delicious, crisp fruits and that racy minerality. Awesome finish, as acids and minerals dial up, but don't over power, as things remain beautifully in balance with a paradoxical softness despite the cutting acidity. The added cost to transport this to the US aside, it would be the best white wine I've had at its price point, and an easy case purchase if I could. Freakish stats on this one, and you'd never know the sugar is higher than the 2009 due to the acidity and extract:
Sugar: 6.7 g/l Alcohol: 12.0% Acidity: 7.2 g/l Extract: 28.9 g/l
Post a Comment / Do you find this review helpful? Yes - No
2010 Árvay János Tokaji Istenhegy Vineyard 90 Points
Hungary, Tokaji
Istenhegy translates to "The Hill of God", and is a vineyard next to Ratka, where the winery is. Fifty million years ago there were 400 active volcanoes in this area, and lots of water, and this site has a particularly interesting, fossil laden volcanic soil. This wine was 100% barrel aged, and is a barrel selection from Istenhegy (the remaining barrels going into other blends). The aromas are vibrant and thick, with a somewhat sweet and funky mineral tone. The palate is soft, showing plenty of mineral flavors, and more mild acidity than the Estate blend. Quite soft palate texture, actually. The finish is larger though, with more forward acidity that just builds and builds after swallowing. Very interesting and enjoyable experience, with that tartness that lasts forever. I actually found this just slightly less complex and enjoyable than the 2010 Estate at present, but very interesting. It just feels very tightly wound at present, not giving much up, and I think needs some additional time to come around and really strut its stuff. I don't have the full stats, but this was 4.6 g/l RS, and 7g/l total acidity. 90+
Post a Comment / 1 person found this helpful, do you? Yes - No