Talk about a fringe benefit. I doubt if anyone witnessing the demise of communism in Europe would have turned their thoughts immediately to the revitalisation of Hungarian Tokaj Aszu, one of the greatest of all dessert wines. Predating Sauternes by two centuries and German trockenbeerenauslesen by one, it’s an intensely flavoured, richly textured and heavily botrytised wine made with late-picked furmint, the indigenous and richly aromatic harslevelu and a small amount of a local golden Muscat of Alexandria. Described by Louis XIV as ‘the wine of kings and king of wines’, Tokay’s pre-eminent status was historically really only threatened by the legendary Constantia from South Africa’s Cape of Good Hope. Ben Howkins, Marketing and Sales Director of the Royal Tokaji Wine Company (RTWC), says the State Wine Farm, which controlled all wine production during the communist period, ‘hoovered up’ all the wines, irrespective of vintage and origin, before blending them all together. It would be like blending all the vineyards of South Australia into a single, featureless wine. The State sold its wines as best it could, usually trading them with Russia in exchange for natural gas. But the fall of the Berlin Wall enabled the Hungarian government to selectively open the doors of its wine industry to foreign investors. One of the new breed of premium Aszu producers was the RWTC, founded in 1989 as a joint venture between such well-known European wine identities as scribe Hugh Johnson and celebrated winemaker Peter Vinding-Diers with various growers in the top classified vineyards of Mad, one of the most famous of all Aszu-making towns. Sold in its trademark 500 ml bottles, Tokaji Aszi is made like no other dessert wine. Heavily botrytised fruit is harvested separately from fruit less over-ripe and taken away as ‘aszu’, a paste-like mix of botrytis and shrivelled fruit. Depending on factors such as the quality of the year and the intended sweetness of the wine, 20-litre amounts of paste known as ‘puttonyos’ (tubs) are added back to the traditional 140-litre barrels containing base wine made from unaffected grapes for fermentation. The wines, whose ultimate sweetness and concentration will relate back to the amount of aszu added, are labelled with the number of puttonyos or ‘putts’ added, usually between three and six. Seven putts is pure aszu ‘essence’, a rare and treasured phenomenon. Once the aszu has absorbed the wine, it is left to ferment itself, a process that traditionally has taken several years. The more the sugar and concentration it has, the longer the time required. The full range of RWTC wines from the 1993 vintage, which has arguably created the finest Aszu for over a century, is now available in Melbourne. From the tangy, citrusy Red Label to the extra-dimensional Aszu Essencia, their remarkable intensity and long, minerally finish offers a new alternative for enthusiasts of dessert wines. Five classic individual vineyard wines including the utterly sublime Szt Tamas complete the bracket. Top restaurants are even serving them by the glass.
