Let’s talk about Tokaji, the Hungarian wine that inspired Beethoven and Goethe | Wine

Disznókő Late Harvest Tokaji, Hungary 2020 (from £20, cambridgewine.com; leaandsandeman.co.uk) When it comes to celebrity endorsements, very few wine regions can compete with Hungary’s Tokaj for A-list calibre names. Forget popstars, actors or influencers, tokaji (the wines of Tokaj the region in northeast Hungary are spelled with an ‘i’) can call on the unpaid-for words of praise of classical music’s greatest composers (Beethoven, Haydn, Schubert, Liszt) and such big-hitting writers as Voltaire, Goethe and Schiller, not to mention the (slightly less eloquent) recommendations of most European royalty from Louis XV on. Rather than dwelling on the somewhat inconvenient fact that most of these names have been dead for the better part of 200 years, I’d rather think about the thrill that the best tokaji still brings, and how a glowing amber glass of one of the region’s sweet wines, such as the immaculate Late Harvest bottling from Disznókő, with its gentle glow of golden syrup and orange citrus, and its trickle of typically twangy acidity, is every bit as unctuously luxurious now as it would have been when it was inspiring the composition of Faust or the Moonlight Sonata.

Royal Tokaji Blue Label 5 Puttonyos Tokaji Aszú, Hungary 2018 (£14.99, 25cl, Waitrose; £29.99, or £21.99 as part of a mixed case of six bottles, 50cl, majestic.co.uk) By all accounts, modern Tokaji has been transformed in the 35 years since independent producers returned to production after the end of communism in Hungary in 1989. Since then, it’s been a long process of recovering the historic vineyards (Tokaj’s vineyards were ranked and classified according to quality in the mid-18th-century) and switching focus back to quality over quantity of production. While much has changed in Tokaji, the most widely celebrated wines remain the aszú bottlings, which are made from grapes which have been affected by a fungus known as noble rot, or botrytis, a process which dries the grapes, concentrating sugars and flavours in the process. The precise level of sugar is represented by the number of puttonyos on the label of the finished wines, from 60g/l of sugar (3 puttonyos) to 150g/l (6 puttonyos), with Royal Tokaj’s gorgeous classically styled barley sugar, apricot and marmalade-tangy 5 puttonyos clocking in at a Christmas blue cheese-ready 120g/l.

Château Dereszla Dry Tokaji, Hungary 2022 (from £14.25, Booths; virginwines.co.uk) The wonderful thing about the best aszú and other sweet tokaji wines is that they never feel overbearingly sweet and sugary. That’s thanks to a trademark balancing acidity – an electrical charge that keeps the mouth awake and wanting another sip. Much as I love sweet tokaji, however, and will certainly be opening a few bottles over the next month, I understand they’re not exactly everyday wines – even if the cost of handpicking and sorting the botrytis-affected grapes, not to mention the tiny quantities of juice they yield, means they are in fact rather good value for money for the work that goes into them. But sweet wines are very far from being the only wine style produced in the region, with the dry white wines made from the same grape varieties (notably furmint and hárslevelű) having their own idiosyncratic charm. As with the stickies, it’s the flashing blade of acidity that gives Château Dereszla’s example its moreish, mouthwatering character, along with bright, ripe apples and apricots in a wine that will appeal to fans of South African and Loire chenin blanc.