Tocai has become the most famous wine country in Hungary. The wines brewed in this area are all crowned with TOKAJI. The world's unique top quality wine is TOKAJI ASZU.
The glory of TOKAJI:
Drinkers who once tasted Tocai, a famous Hungarian wine known as the "King's Wine", will appreciate the diverse, rich and round taste of this grape sweet wine.
Tocai series wines enjoy a long-lasting reputation in the world wine industry. It has obvious effects of nourishing yin and tonifying yang, and can strengthen the body, so it belongs to health-care liquor. Swiss nutritionists called Tocai wine "the best wine in the world" after analyzing the nutritional components and contents in the wine. An Italian poet praised "Tocai's fine wine, which gives people intelligence and intelligence"; In the 19th century, a poet named Semailai Mikrosh wrote poems in praise of Tocai wine: God-given Tocai, it is not unusual for it to stay young. As long as it smells its mellow fragrance, death escapes without a trace. Tocai, blessed by God, is strong and beautiful forever. As long as you drink its nectar, the disease will stay away from life forever.
For more than 400 years, Tocai has always been proud to live in the feast of western European courts, and has become a necessary royal wine for the royal families of European countries. Even the French, who are proud of being called the wine kingdom, look at Tocai Asu with new eyes and admit his lofty position as "the best wine". French King Louis XIV, after drinking Tocai Asu, praised it as "the king of wine, the wine of the royal family"! Since then, Tocai Asu has become one of the indispensable wines in Louis XIV's wine list.
Tocai Asu is a must-have wine for entertaining distinguished guests at court banquets in Russian, Austrian and Western European countries, as well as at banquets hosted by the Pope. Among them, Russian Tsar Peter the Great was most obsessed with the mellow beauty of Tocai wine. He actually bought several grape plantations and wine cellars in Tocai to brew royal wine for himself. Tocai Asu wine conquered Europe, became famous in the world, and remained the king. Only in the last twenty years, it has won more than one hundred gold medals in international wine competitions, and it is a well-deserved king of wine.
Types of grapes brewed by TOKAJI:
FURMINT (Fleming) and HARSLEVELU (Harless Levi Lu) are two Hungarian specialty grape varieties for brewing Tocai sweet wine.
Medicinal value of TOKAJI:
The brewed wine contains natural penicillin and several natural chemical components beneficial to human body. Tocai Asu's nourishing and health-care effects have been included in Hungarian Pharmacopoeia since ancient times, and it was not until nearly forty years ago that it was officially stripped from drugs prescribed by doctors and returned to alcohol.
The legendary origin of TOKAJI:
1650, Turkish troops invaded Hungary on a large scale. When the Turkish army approached Tocai, it was the grape harvest season. In order to avoid looting by the Turkish army, a reformist Christian priest in Tokai called on farmers to postpone picking. People didn't start harvesting until 1 1 was frozen at the beginning of the month. The original watery grapes have dried up due to water shrinkage, and the skin is not only thin and wrinkled, but also has an ugly layer of mold on it. Looking at the dry grape clusters like raisins, people can only use them to brew the wine of that year in desperation. However, what I never expected was that the wine brewed this year was much more mellow, rich and fragrant than the wine made from grapes picked in normal seasons. The accidental postponement of picking has unexpectedly brought the brilliance of Tocai wine to the world.
The brewing principle of TOKAJI:
Every three to four years, there will be a unique autumn in Tocai, which is different from the past. Whenever this kind of climate comes, a layer of BOTRYTIS CINEREA, which is only found in the foothills of Tocai, will be born on the surface of the withered grapes hanging on the branches. Only under the action of this special fungus can it be dehydrated into wine brewed from raisins and become the best Tocai sweet wine. Because when grapes are dehydrated, sugar concentration occurs inside, thus producing unique aromatic components. The process of dehydration and drying under the action of this fungus is called "Asuzation" of grapes by local people.
After the infection of botrytis cinerea, the collected withered grapes will be put into a large wooden barrel first, so that the grapes can squeeze out the juice by their own weight. These essential juices will flow out from the injection holes at the bottom of the wooden barrel, and the juice flowing out has a very high sugar content, which can be as high as more than 700 grams per liter. These grape juice will be used to brew top-grade sweet wine (ASZU ESSENCIA) with little annual output. After collecting the essence juice, the grapes in the barrel will be mixed with the same kind of grape juice in a fixed proportion or the newly brewed wine according to the sweetness required for brewing sweet wine, soaked for two to three days, so that the sugar and essence of the moldy withered grapes can be fully integrated into the wine, then squeezed, taken out and brewed, and then put into a wooden barrel, where it will be fermented for a long time to brew this top-grade grape sweet wine.
The sweetness division method of TOKAJI;
The classification of Tocai sweet wine mainly depends on the sweetness of the wine. The higher the sweetness, the more withered grapes are needed and the brewing time will be longer. In the past, these moldy grapes were collected in wooden baskets with a fixed capacity, each with a capacity of about 25 kilograms, and the salary of grape pickers was also calculated according to the number of baskets collected. This backpack-type wooden basket is called "PUTTONYOS" by Hungarians. Therefore, the sweetness of Tocai sweet wine is also graded according to the number of buckets of dried grapes added in 136 liters of grape juice. At least three baskets must be added before liqueur can be called the first-class liqueur in ASZU category. If you don't count the top ASZU ESSENCIA, the highest sweetness is 6 PUTTONYOS.
The aging of TOKAJI:
Under normal circumstances, Tocai sweet wine should be aged in wooden barrels for at least three and a half years. After bottling, the ripening speed of sweet wine will be very slow. Tocai sweet wine brewed in a good year will become more mellow and harmonious due to the slow aging effect in the bottle. Under proper storage, Taojiatai sweet wine is a good wine that can be aged for decades.
Types of TOKAJI:
Tokaji Furmint–As the name implies, this wine is made from 100% Furmint grapes and has not been nourished by expensive rot fungi, so it is not Dry.
Tokaji szamorodni–szamorodni solution: "born this way". Harvesting Szamorodni grapes is not as laborious as harvesting Aszú. Aszú has to pick expensive rotten grapes one by one by hand, but Szamorodni will only pick the whole bunch of grapes, which contains uneven ordinary and expensive rotten grapes. The wine may be sweet (édes) or not (száraz), and it is determined by the weather of that year, which is in line with the meaning of "born this way". It is very Zen.
Tokaji Aszú esszencia–rare and very expensive, so wine is only produced in excellent years, with a sweetness as high as 7 puttonyos or above.
Tokaji Esszencia–Strictly speaking, it should be classified as syrup, not wine, because Esszencia is the natural juice of dried raisins that are being used but not mashed, and its sweetness is very high, and its sugar content can reach 850 grams per liter! These nectars may contain little or no alcohol.
Government protection of TOKAJI:
Tocai wine series also has special strict requirements on bottling. In order to maintain the best reputation of Tocai wine in the world, the Hungarian government stipulated the uniform shape of wine bottles in legal form, requiring that the year of brewing must be indicated, and Tocai Asu also had special labels of 3 baskets, 4 baskets, 5 baskets and 6 baskets. Even cork bottle stoppers have been ironed with uniform pattern marks. Every bottle of Tocai wine coming out of the cellar must be sealed with a seal numbered by the State before it is allowed to enter the market.