Tokaj and more wines from Hungary

Tokaj

Disclaimer: As all of the posts on this site. The idea is to be a a wine wikipedia that gets updated with more informations as times goes on. That means that if we hold a hungarian wine tasting soon this section is likely to be heavily updated. This include field trips from specific wineries!

Image taken from www.tokajwineregion.com

Tokaj is a wine region with the majority being in Hungary while a small part being in Slovenia famous for their Furmint native grape, dessert wines and white wine in general.

Furmint (grape)

Other names: Arany, Mainak. Mosler (Austria). Šipon (Slovenia), Moslavac (Croatia).

Color: Wheat-gold.

Characteristics and style: Can be from bone dry to extremly sweet wines affected by noble rot. High levels of acidity with phenolic compounds..

 

Hars (grape)

Other names: Hárslevelű (hungarian), Lipovina (in Slovak), Frunza de tei(in Romanian), Lindenblättriger (in German) and Feuille de Tilleul (in French)

Map of hars beginning

The name refers to the liden leaf in all of these languages. It is often blended with furmint to produce dessert wine but also vinified as a pure varietal dry wine. It makes up approx 18% of the wines in Hungary. It often have a dense, fullbodied, greenfold-wine with an intense aroma of spice, pollen and elderflowers and Linden honey flavours.  It also exists in South Africa.

Noble rot

Starting a new job 2019 in London, close to my work space I naturally gravitated towards a wine bar. It was called Noble Rot and until now I did not realize what it meant. Noble rot is a grey fungus that typically happens when it is ripe, then moist temperature and if it turns to its damaging form “grey rot” it can destroy crops of grapes. When it is later exposed to drier condition it becomes partially raisined and this is called noble rot and wines produced like this are cale botrytized wines.

Read related post  Pinot blanc (grape variety)

Related tasted wines in our wine tastings:

Karadi Berger – Erdonbye. Furmint & hars 2015

Comments: Smell and taste of quince.

Verdict: ???

 

Other mentions

Interpreting wine podcast have made a series of podcasts regarding hungarian wine during 2018/2019 that might be interesting to listen to available by your typical podcast channels.

 

Interesting links (and references)

Tokaj wine region

Furmint (wikipedia)

Harslevelu (grape) (wikipedia) (also called Lindenblättriger)

Top ten hungarian grapes – article by the hungarian wine society

Noble rot (wiki)