The Tokaj Guide, one of the region’s most important guides and the most wine-friendly writing has finally released. Its popularity is proven by the fact that this is its fourth release.

Author Gergely Ripka was honoured by the critical acclaim given to him at the start of this year, as his work was nominated on the Gourmand Awards among the 4 nominees in the „European wine” category.

The bilingual (Hungarian-English) guide is a handy start for beginners, adepts, tasters at home and on the road.
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Gergely has supplied us with the first copies after the online premiere of the book on Friday. You can purchase your own copies or receive them as extra if you order the special wine collection below.

​One of Christianity’s most important symbols is wine, ever since the oldest religions gathered. Jesus himself declares at the Last supper how God should be worshipped and how the Communion should be held. Mark’s Gospel is the first of the gospels, in which one of the most well-known chapters describes the Last Supper as such:

While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take it; this is my body.” Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, and they all drank from it. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many,” he said to them. “Truly I tell you, I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”
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But how is it even possible that bread and wine contain God? Christian teachings differ in many ways from one another: roman catholics attribute the phenomenon with transubstantiation, meaning that a priest transforms the bread and the wine into the body and blood of Christ, respectively. The ancient latin liturgy “Hoc est corpus meum” – this is my body – is supposedly the origin of the popularized expression “hocus-pocus”. Similar to this is the representation of magic wands in children’s tales or cartoons, or the ringing, bell-like jingle associated with them. This transformatory reasoning is shrouded in mystery among the catholic rites, although it’s one of the things that defines it and separates them from other religious denominations.

​The protestant communities claim a slightly different viewpoint – there are even two different understandings. According to a puritan approach the communion is merely a memorial supper. The other, dominant approach claims that during the communion’s reception God is somehow present in the communion itself. The Lutheran Church believes this as well, although Martin Luther described this in an unusual way. There are other differences as well, since the Calvinist communities hold the communion with bread, while the Lutherans and Catholics hold it with wafers.

Moving on to wine, there are several communities and congregations that stick to red wine mostly because of its color, but in Hungary – and therefore Tokaj – many communities hold the event using Tokaj wine. Religious practice shows that Tokaj wine tastes really well even if drunk from one of those old, metal chalices. It’s important that one focuses on their spiritual connection during the communion, so drinking bad wine can distract the disciples from concentrating on achieving this connection, however irrelevant this little detail might be. It’s difficult to find something more annoying than being brought a sour wine during such a communion and seeing the faces of the people contort in various ways of discomfort instead of experiencing the community’s most bonding moments. After all, this is what  a communion is all about: to achieve the most complete earthly connection with Christ.
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Martin Luther describes wine and other drinks: “Wine is a commendable thing, mentioned in the Bible, while beer is made by men.” He also says: “He who likes not women, wine or song remains a fool his whole life long.” Perhaps one of his most well-known quotes is: “Wine is strong, the king stronger, the wife even stronger, but truth is the strongest!” Besides his wife pioneering a brewery, Luther highly appreciated wine. In around 1540 he owned roughly 600 grapevines. However, this could never have been enough for his entire household, which consisted of around 60 people. It was for this reason that his friends, supporters and even the monarch of Wittenberg often gifted him wine. It is known that his preachings were also frequently paid in wine.

​It’s quite difficult to search for the frequency of expressions in the electronic versions of the Holy Texts. Most Hungarian editions cannot separate full words from syllables, making it extremely hard to say how often ‘wine’ or ‘grape’ appears in the Bible. It’s still known that at least two hundered different mentions include grape, as the fruit of the plant, and this doesn’t include grapevines or grapebranches.The number of mentions of ‘wine’ are also somewhere around two hundred.

According to the Old Testament it was Noah who first planted grapes and produced wine, and it was he who was inebriated the first. Due to the intoxicating influence of wine it’s usually placed into negative context, such as bad consequences or other unfortunate events. Grape, however, is one of the most noteworthy plants in the Bible, sharing the top of the list with wheat and figs. All the way from the Promised Land, Canaan to the Kingdom of God, it is regarded as a valuable and praiseworthy fruit.

In the New Testament, Jesus compares the Father to a grapegrower in his own parables. In other places he represents himself as a grapevine, while his teachings are the branches of the grapes. This proves further just how privileged grape and wine is in both Jewish and Christian teachings. Paul the Apostle writes to his student, Timothy in one of his letters: "Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities.” But first, he clearly warns: “Keep yourself pure!”. According to these, even the very strict Paul sometimes recommended a little wine in order to lead a healthy and pure life.

And let’s not forget: the first miracle performed by Jesus according to the Gospel of John was when the wine ran out during a local feast in Cana. Jesus proceeded to turn six stone buckets of water into wine in order to refill the supplies. In case of avoiding the blame on Christ and not to accuse him of “splashing around”, the following exchange is said between the groom and the best man: “Everyone brings out the choice wine first, and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink"

translated by Áron Várhelyi

For those who have ever found themselves confused about the different types and categories of the wine of Tokaj-Hegyalja, today’s article will definitely come in handy before your potential excursion to the region. In this post, we’ll be going through all the products with increased attention given to the wine specialties, starting from the basics and finishing at eszencia.
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What is sweet and what is dry?
The Hungarian wine law precisely defines what may be called dry or sweet on a wine’s label. This is mainly determined by the sugar content and occasionally its relation to the acid levels of the wine. The residual sugar content of a dry wine stays under 4 gram/liter but it’s not always that simple. One can consider a higher sugar wine dry as well (even 9 g/l) but the titratable acid (tartaric, lactic and other organic acids) content must be at or below 2 g/l. If it reaches over the aforementioned attributes but the sugar is under 12 g/l, we consider the wine a semidry one. If the difference between the acid level and sugar content is lower than 10 g/l then even an 18 g/l wine can fit into the semidry category. The semisweet wines contain more than the above but still lower than 45 g/l of sugar. Anything above is considered a sweet wine. The levels are slightly different when it comes to champagne but they won’t be discussed in today’s article.

Tokaj OEM (PDO)
Currently, there are 3 levels in Hungary when it comes to protecting the origins of products. The Tokaj wine region allows the use of six grapes under the legislation of the OEM (protected designation of origin):  furmint, hárslevelű, sárga muskotály, kabar, zéta, kövérszőlő. Any other wine made from white or even red types falls under the Upper-Hungarian OFJ (under protection and geographically designated). Anything that falls outside of these two are FN (without geographical designation) wines, although these don’t concern us for the moment, as only the OEM types will be discussed further below.

Szamorodni, máslás and fordítás: dry or sweet?
It’s quite interesting that – traditionally – each wine located and made in Tokaj was able to be made both dry and sweet – even aszú – based on the completion and length of its fermentation process. Nowadays, only szamorodni keeps this ambiguity, although there once used to be dry máslás and fordítás as well. These wines’ dry counterparts have at this point disappeared from official product descriptions, mostly due to an effort in making the region’s spectrum of variety clearer and more organised for the average person.

Dry and sweet szamorodni
Szamorodni therefore may be sweet and dry based on the sugar and acid levels contained within. Both are made via harvesting the unseparated grapes straight from the vine (as the polish word of origin also declares: „as grown”). These clusters contain ripe, overly ripe and aszú berries as well, providing the wine with a highly unpredictable sugar amount. With a shorter fermentation period, the product may stay sweet and a longer process can produce a fine dry wine as well. A unique attribute of dry szamorodni is that, according to a particular tradition, it is fermented in parts, meaning the barrel isn’t filled to the brim, creating a sort of layer of yeast on the surface of the wine inside. This layer gives the wine certain notes like walnut, bread crust, or an oxidized, aldehyde-like taste. Its colour becomes darker, the acid levels turn out to be much more apparent,  and the wine usually has a more mature taste spectrum. There are also those who try to avoid this type of fermentation. Another point of view claims that hundreds of years ago, the one-year-old wines – transported in barrels – couldn’t possibly be transported in multiple parts, as the sales were made quickly in the hubs of large trading cities. It often occured that this yeast layer developed in the polish traders’ cellars (due to a plague or famine, lowering the overall sales of wine) and this tradition carried over to Tokaj too, not so different from the process of making the french Jura or the spanish Sherry wines. This wine has a minimum requirement of spending at least 6 months in a wooden barrel. Nowadays – as drier wines without any signs of botrytis are growing more and more popular – the dry szamorodni is much less popular and frequent than its sweet counterpart. Both are to be transferred into half litre, white tokaji bottles. A close sibling of sweet szamorodni is the late harvest, where the requirements are much lighter and forgiving: it can contain aszú berries but can also be made from overly ripe fruit. One may also choose to age it in either wood or steel, which is usually determined by the current year’s quality and the winemaker’s style, as well as the ever-changing market.

Máslás and Fordítás
These are two ancient wine types, as the máslás dates back to 1759 and the fordítás to 1826. Both are the byproducts of aszú, created by the winemakers’ will to save the botrytis berries’ extremely valuable essence and to make the most possible use of them. Fordítás is made by a second soaking (and later pressing) of the previously pressed aszú wine. Máslás is made by adding a new, fresh wine to the marc of an aszú (or rarely szamorodni) wine, and letting it sit and clear over time after multiple stirs. Due to the marc’s properties, the wine gains its sugar, acid and aroma contents, granting the final wine a creamy, buttery texture. According to descriptions, the wine’s name is a reference to this, as the polish masło means ‘butter’.
Similarly to the trends of szamorodni, both máslás and fordítás are made sweet nowadays and are to be bottled into white tokaj bottles.

Aszú
The world’s greatest naturally sweet wine is a miracle of nature itself: on cool autumn mornings when the mists of the Bodrog and the Tisza fall down onto the barely ripened  berries in the valleys of Hegyalja, the thin skins of the grapes are settled by the Botrytis cinerea fungus. This mold penetrates the berries and deprives the fruit of water until it’s completely dry. Once these berries are picked in the correct status of ripening, they can be soaked for a short time in either grape juice, 'murci' (fermenting wine) or wine and then pressed for the result of the finalised aszú. The amount of aszú berries which were soaked – in 136 litres, also known as a ‘gönci’ barrel’s worth, of “base liquid” – was measured in puttony-s, which later indicated the aszú wines 'puttony' number (3-4-5-6).
A puttony is roughly 27 litres. However, as time went on, aszú had begun to be classified by the sugar contents rather than the puttony number. It ranges from 60 g/l natural residual sugar (3 puttony) in 30 g/l jumps all the way to 180 (6 puttony). Nowadays only 5 and 6 puttony aszú exists, meaning the wine must contain a minimum of 120 g/l of sugar. It must also be aged for 18 months in a wooden barrel and it cannot be distributed until at least 3 years have passed since it was harvested, after January 1.

Aszúeszencia vs eszencia
This topic has plenty of confusion around it, since the former doesn’t even exist since 2006. This is mainly due to the (lack of) clarity surrounding aszú, as aszúeszencia was basically every aszú that peaked over 180+ g/l (meaning it cannot be further measured via puttony number). These types of wines are made today as 6 puttony wines, but the different names given to them prove to be inefficient, confusing and superfluous.
The eszencia is something entirely different: it is made from a dripping nectar (concentrated grape juice) which is gathered into a tub during the harvest, containing a minimum of 450 g/l of sugar and ferments all the way down to 1-2% of alcohol. All wines have a restriction of at least 9% alcohol to be brought into distribution – except eszencia, of course.

Happy tasting!

translated by Áron Várhelyi

​For most worldly people, it’s one of the most difficult parts of wine snobbery to adequately describe a wine’s taste using the appropriate jargon – the lusty smell containing lichee and mango, the silky tannin felt on one’s palate, or the never-ending, infinitely lingering aftertaste. But can a drink made from grapes truly contain lichee or mango? What is supposed to be a long aftertaste? And what even is tannin? In today’s article, we’ll explore the basics of the vocabulary of describing wine.

​The appearance
When tasting wine, we usually rely on three fundamental sensory organs: eyes, nose, tongue (clinking the glasses caters to our ears!). In order to move from the easier ones to more complex organs, we’ll start with our eyes. Mistakes can be found anywhere and everywhere, if one knows where to look for them: do we see separation, opalness, or a bleary texture? If not, we may proclaim the wine as crystal clear; meaning that light can’t refract inside it, making it shine inside its glass. When it comes to champagne, the size and durability of the bubbles become more important (a good champagne has tiny bubbles that persist for hours after opening, although the best champagne’s lifetime is measured in minutes, not hours). Still wine may have similar but much more subtle sparkles, which can be caused by a certain re-fermentation once bottled, or even residual CO2. A wine’s colour tells much about its age and can refer to its grape type. The one-year-old furmint made reductively (in a container) may appear as a slight yellow reminding us of lemon or hay. On the other hand, a ten-year-old furmint might have a deeper hay colour or even golden hue and aszú is more in the amber and topaz territories. Yet again, a fresh sárgamuskotály is often completely colourless.
Regarding red wine, we differentiate between edge and seed (this is much easier to inspect in front of a sheet of white paper): the thin peeled kadarka, the pinot noir pale don’t contain seeds, while a merlot or a syrah may have a dark seed inside their ruby tinted skin (the colour of red wines also refer to their ages: the young ones are vivid, purple, and the older ones come off as brick red with a brownish edge).
(We also inspect a wine’s viscosity: as a drop is stuck on the wall of a glass and slowly slides down, one can determine the glicerin contents of the wine, which indicates its bulkiness. It’s an urban legend that a wine’s real value can be determined through this process as well.)
(Wines that make it to commercial distribution are first inspected by NÉBIH – National Food Chain Safety Office – so the less qualified or more faulty wines cannot be sold at stores.)

​A strange organ: the nose
The ugly truth is scientifically proven: consumers basically rely on two variables when deciding whether they like a wine or not. The first one is the label while the other is the smell, which is the first intimate impression of the given wine. In contrast to its appearance, the smell can tell one much more about the liquid, and at a deeper level. At a fundamental level, we can describe the same characteristics as before: clarity, out-of-place notes (cork fault, which indicates an overly musty cellar, evokes the smell of wet cardboard, but other wine faults and sicknesses honestly deserve their own articles). Each grape type possesses their own textbook attributes: an Irasi Olivér is not unlike fresh grapejuice with its muskotály-like nature, the olaszrizling resembles almonds, the tramini roses, the kadarka is a spicy treat, while the chardonnay and the furmint are neutral, the hárslevelű is flowery, reminding one of honey, etc. At this point, I’ll forward some good, general advice: letting our imagination run wild and free will produce the best results in terms of describing a smell. It’s quite clear that a 20-year-old guy and a 40-year-old lady will perceive slightly different notes in the same wine due to being in different states of mind or coming from different walks of life.
It must be stated that some molecules are actually found in other fruits (plum, blueberries, redcurrants), while the distinct apricot notes of aszú are probably the cause of association and different aromas which merely resemble apricot jam. The wine-describing jargon ultimately serves the purpose of describing the difference between one wine and another (e.g. ten different rosé): one has more raspberry, another strawberry, the third one is a bit held back, the fourth more intense, and so on. It also helps picking the right meal for the wine and vice versa.
While we use aromas to describe young wine, any older than three years has a bouquet. The first inhalation always says a lot about the wine since the smell is felt the most intensely. Throughout a tasting or a testing of multiple wines, one’s nose is prone to tiring and fatigue, quickly getting used to the ovepowering smells and tastes. It is, after all, the organ that has felt the laziness of urban life the most. It happens way too often that we smell something and it reminds us of a profound memory, perhaps something we remember from grandma’s kitchen during lunchtime, but our brain has an extremely hard time with correctly grasping the name of the smell. For anyone who would prefer to improve their nostrils’ sensory abilities, most wine stores sell sample-sets, which can be used to train our nose to the characteristic aromas of white, red, or rosé wines.

​What our mouths may tell us
As man likes to categorise many things, we wine-lovers too prefer to divide smells and tastes into three fundamental attributes: the primary notes (the fruity characters), the secondary (notes originating from the start of fermentation and aging) and the tertiary notes (longer aging, tastes and smells appearing after bottling). The widely spread aroma wheel can also provide support in appropriately naming the tastes we taste, helping us move from the dominant, primary fruits like citrus, through secondary notes such as orange peel, or even tertiary attributes thanks to barrel aging such as a vanilla taste/smell. It’s known that we feel the different tastes like salty, sour, sweet and bitter at different parts of our tongue – even umami  has been classified as a basic taste now. When it comes to wine, one can analyse the following fundamental ingredients: sugar (from dry to sweet), acid (this provides the backbone of a wine, especially alongside residual sugar), alcohol (searing as it goes down, or perhaps a sweeter slide), body (consists of the wine’s alcohol and solid contents, how bulky or full it is) and the aforementioned tannin, which is especially attributed to red wines, since it’s mostly improved by soaking on top of the peels (in less ideal situations, the stalk and the seed may increase the tannin in a wine, or even the barrel can achieve this). Tannin can be felt on one’s palate and gums as a contracting sensation, not unlike when we bite into something very sour and bitter at the same time, like sloe.
It can be said about every ingredient that it’s ideal to search for the wine’s balance above all things. This can only be found in truly great wines.
The acid can be: slight or held back (in a warm year white wine), refreshing (young rosé), vivid (in fine tokaji furmint), wild (in rhine risling), garish (in a cool year aszú), harsh (e.g. unripe grape or wine made in cool climates), etc.
The sugar can be: slight (in dry wines), complimenting (in semi-dry tokaji), sweet (in a semisweet wine made from overripe grapes), rich and intense (in a fine szamorodni), billowing (in a good aszú) or overly sweet (in an acidless sweet wine, although this is rare in Tokaj thanks to its species.)
The alcohol can be: discreet, sweet, middling, high, overt, searing.
The wine’s body can be: thin (in a more acidic, low content cserszegi), slender (in an early harvested white wine), middling (in an average kékfrankos), garish, full, thick or full-bodied (like a serious bordeaux red).

​Swallowing is not the final step!
It’s worth consciously paying attention to what happens after we swallow wine: most times many different tastes can be felt than before we sip the liquid. This is mainly due to the fact that most wines reveal other smells and aromas after being exposed to air for some time (this is why we recommend letting wine ’sit’ for a little bit, or even inhaling before swallowing, as if trying to make an ’F’ sound with a sharp intake of air). Based on this aftertaste’s length it may be quick or quite long if we can still feel some sensations multiple seconds after swallowing. The clarity of this lingering aftertaste can refer to the grape’s and even the barrel’s qualities, although it can also refer to faults like the cellar’s mouldiness or an overwhelming alcohol level. Consider noting what part one feels for the longest amount of time in one’s mouth: the acid, the sugar, the alcohol, or perhaps the barrel’s sweet spices? Maybe the furmint’s phenol-like bitterness.
The sum of these is the ultimate result of how much we like a particular wine: this is called an impression (on 100-score evaluations, this one is worth an 11). A wine may be completely clear with perfect smell and taste but might still prove to be boring as a stick – on the other hand, an unfiltered, blurry wine can sometimes surprise us with fine smells and full aromas.
It’s all a matter of practice. One can’t let themselves be influenced by winemakers or bloggers or the labels’ descriptions. Finding a suitable container and spending enough time, effort and attention on the wine itself and most importantly letting our imaginations run wild are crucial to improving. Blind tasting is great fun as well, when the wine’s label is covered and unseen: we can find ourselves learning a lot about the liquids when we separate our tastebuds from our prejudices. With such an ability a whole new world opens up, which is capable of entertaining for a long, long time.

translated by Áron Várhelyi

​The answer is clearly YES! Although the third and fourth month of the year are full of prohibition periods concerning our predatory fish. From the 1st of March it is forbidden to fish for zander, asp, perch, and Volga zander. At the same time, the ban on pike fishing, that started in February, is still in effect too (ending on 1st April). Therefore, this period of the year is truly difficult for spin fishermen, but it does not mean that we should entirely give up artificial lure fishing.
Most of the fanatic spin fishermen either hunt bass (which count as alien species) in this period of the year on intensely stocked lakes, or they walk about on the shores of rapid (and often rhapsodic concerning water level) creeks and streams hoping that they might catch a good-size chub. However, the lovers of big rivers and wild waters do not have to lose heart either, since there are two fish species that are not protected by catching prohibitions in March, and it is easy to prey them in the quickly warming waters too. And these two species are ide and the European catfish (Wels catfish).
Those, who visit Tokaj in early spring have the chance to catch both species indeed, since River Bodrog is famous for its huge ide fish, while the catfish population of River Tisza is highly exceptional. Thus, nature-loving spin anglers can spin fish here for two species, even on the same day, that behave quite different, and that provide an entirely different fishing experience for those who deserve this. 

​Let’s start with ide (orfe), which is basically not a bream fish, since it is a member of the Cyprinids family. However, even this attribution of it cannot stop them from hunting prey fish in a predatory manner all year long, but especially in spring and autumn. By the way, besides small prey fish, they feed on almost everything; most of their diet is made up by bugs and insects falling into the water from trees, but they also consume crayfish and leeches too, furthermore, in the summer, they even collect the fruit of wild mulberry trees that fall on the surface of the water.
We must prepare with ultra-light tackle for ide. Our spin fishing rod must be capable of casting small lures. Fishing from a boat, we prefer rods shorter than 2 meters, with casting weights approximately between 1-10 grams, and small, size 1000 or 2000 reels, with 0,06-0,08 mm diameter line (preferably either nanofil or braid) on the spool.
The mouth of the ide is small; thus, we can spin fish for them effectively with smaller-size lures, 2-5 cm wobblers, soft baits, or metal lures (like spinners and spoons). When choosing the color of a lure, we should prefer darker colors and lifelike patterns!
In this period of the year, we may find ide fish in deeper water (too). At spots where the current of the river pushes out to the shoreline and the depth of the water is sufficiently deep enough (2-4 meters), that is where we should search for the ide group. Here, the current constantly drifts nourishment in front of the fish stuck in the coastal lane, which is particularly advantageous for orfe.
Ide is not a lonely fish; where we catch one, probably there are more, but we must know how to deceive them. And we must be quiet and careful during their fishing, since they are extremely clever and cautious fish, and their eyesight is very good into the bargain! 

​Despite ide, the other predatory fish that can be caught in this period of the year, the largest fish in our waters, the top predatory fish in freshwaters, is the Wels catfish (Silurus glanis). Fishing for catfish, considering the size of it, requires extremely strong equipment. Thus, we must choose heavy tackle, rods, reels, and line which were designed expressly for catfish fishing. Besides the harmony of rod & reel, we must pay special attention to every little element of our rig, e.g.: the snap, the lure, the trebles on the lure, the split rings on the lures, because if we do not do so, catfish will most probably find the weak link in our tackle, and, as a consequence of this, we might lose the fish of our lifetime!
Catfish begin feeding more and more actively due to the warming water. As soon as the temperature of the water reaches 6-7 Celsius degrees, we have a good chance of catching them with artificial lures too. Then, when the water temperature goes above 8 Celsius degrees, they start feeding like crazy, and from this time on, they also react well to the sound of the ancient catfish luring tool, called clonk. Obviously, these measures are not regularities, but experience underlines that they are certainly true to River Tisza.
This is the period of the year – until the water temperature reaches 14-15 Celsius degrees – when most of the large catfish are caught here on the Tokaj Tisza section too. In this period, they attack aggressively wobblers, soft baits, and other kinds of artificial baits too, which action is to their liking and which enters their attack zone.
We can also utilize their greediness. At first, we can find them only in deep waters and steep drop offs, but later, as the weather gets warmer, they start moving to shallower and shallower water as they are following their prey fish, which visit the rapidly warming, 2-3 meters shallow waters in springtime.
We apply two very effective methods. When they are stationary in deep waters, we find more of them in relatively small but easy-to-locate spots. In this case we anchor above the spot and cast our soft baits towards them. We move our lures nice and slow above the bottom, trying to deceive these refined fish. In case we use the other method, we do not anchor the boat, but utilizing the current of the river, we let the flow drift our boat, and we keep moving our baits vertically right under the boat. We apply this technique when – due to the warm water – fish are already scattered around, and not concentrated on one special spot, but they might occur everywhere along a longer river section.  

​So, there is life beyond zanders and pikes for the lovers of predatory fish, we do not have to leave our spinning rods in their stands in spring either. The essence is that we must aim consciously at these predatory fish (ide and catfish) with the proper tackle and lures, and we must fish at the right places. In Tokaj – in a unique way – we have good chance to catch both species! And after a tiresome day we spent with spin fishing on the rivers, the best relaxing program is to visit the cool wine cellars of Tokaj. 

​Appointments for fishing trips in the spring are now available!
​If you need a local and professional fishing guide, feel free to contact me!