A quarter of a century after the collapse of communism, the region of Tokaj is still feeling its way. “Tokaj has been hesitating and turning around for 25 years,” says Gabriella Mészáros, a respected Hungarian wine critic. “The region should concentrate and go straight forward.”
The time may have come. A recent decision by the government will hopefully help Hungary’s leading wine region to be profitable in the near future.
Exciting new initiative
The Tokaj wine region was recently declared a Government-Designated Growth Area, one of three such areas in Hungary. As a consequence, the Hungarian Government has made a commitment to channelling more than €330m ($373m) to the Tokaj region to 2020. While Tokaj’s wines have always held a good place in the population's heart, it's the first time that such an amount of money has been dedicated to the Tokaj production area.
The money will be spent on programmes like brand-building, replanting, helping newcomers and young producers to settle, infrastructure (roads, bike lanes, villages), and so on, with the implementation of European
operating programmes.
The Tokaj Regional Development Council (TRDC) is legally in charge of assessing the region’s social and economic environment. Several surveys are already being conducted. The very first concerns the viticultural area, both as it stands at the moment and its potential for the future. Signed by The Mountain Village Council of the Tokaj Wine Region and the state-run company Tokaj Crown Estates (TCE), the survey will “promote by international standards the methodological improvement of viniculture and the reform of vineyards across the wine region”.
It will also “provide all local producers with detailed data on the characteristics of their respective parcels and vineyards”; today, only 5,500 ha are used for wine production, although the vineyard area is potentially 11,000 ha. The survey results are intended to help identify key projects and policies and thus ensure efficient spending of such funds for the benefit of the region and, consequently, Hungary’s entire wine industry.
The second major survey has been ordered by London-based branding company Claessens International and €10m has been committed to developing the Tokaji brand internationally under a two-year agreement.
The announcement of the survey was made in Budapest last September. The aim is to “develop an aligned strategy to re-establish the Tokaj wine region's reputation and build commercial success.”
Claessens International is known to have helped brands like Mumm, Antinori, Bacardi, Chivas Regal, Petrus and Perrier-Jouët. Is Tokaj going to be relevant enough to be such a strong brand? Claessens’ reputation alone suggests that the project is serious enough that it might become so. The survey ought to be finished in one year.
A question of state
The question could be asked why Tokaj-Hegyalja (the Piedmont of Tokaj) needs to be rescued in such a way, with foundational surveys and intense government involvement.
The answer lies partly in history: Tokaj has always been strongly bound to the Hungarian state. Tokaj Crown Estates – formerly the State Farm – have always played a crucial role in the region. The state company is meant to buy the grapes of 1,700 small producers (once 18,000 producers), who represent a large part of the vineyard area. The government – represented here by the Tokaj Crown Estates – and the Tokaj region are deeply bound together. But will the state be able to let go?
“We still need this state company to rebuild the strategy of the whole region, but I hope it will finally end up as a private company,” says the director of a large private cellar. Other producers speculate that, after bringing enough credibility to the company, the state will indeed sell it to private owners.
If the region of Tokaj still needs to improve after 25 years of “freedom”, the state-run company is a good place to start.
After the communist era, the former State Farm was rebaptised the Tokaj Trading House Ltd (Tokaj Kereskedőház Zrt. in Hungarian), alias Tokaj Crown Estates. But in 25 years the group has never succeeded in producing quality wines, or in being a successful negociant, or in shaking up its sclerotic organisation, regardless of what name it’s held at any given time.
Yet it has sold its wines under a recognised label and at low prices throughout the country and internationally, positioning itself as a formidable competitor to other producers. However, it recently became embroiled in a scandal, when a US importer who had ordered a large volume of wine discovered that wrong vintages were listed. The company was sued and the government decided, for the first time in 25 years, that reform was required.
It stopped the sale of all wines before the vintage 2013, recalled bottles from around the world, fired most of the crew, and announced a total renewal of its wine positioning. A new production hall was built, with an investment of €487,723. The Aszús of the ’new era’ and the Grand Selection, a dry Furmint wine, were presented to the press in November. “We want to sell higher prices in the right segment,” Gaálné Király Enikő, the sales manager who became CEO on 1 February 2015, told the assembled journalists. The Aszús should be sold for not less than €20.00 ex cellar. The 2013 vintage, the only one allowed to be sold today – along with the Eszencia 2007 (representing the top wine classification), and the coming 2014 vintage – is only 500,000 bottles; the whole region can produce no more than 2m 500 ml bottles of Aszú.
Remaining obstacles
The coming big change doesn’t concern only the ex-State Farm – Tokaj has to start a lot of things from scratch. From a historical point of view, of course, the name ‘Tokaj’ retains a glorious image. And it’s not that nothing has been done in the past 25 years; private companies have tried to get things moving and some common initiatives have appeared. But there are too many obstacles yet to be resolved:
- Value
A lot of good grapes and must are being sold out of the Tokaj-Hegyalja area for a ridiculously low price. So are most of the wines. No body provides rules or direction to give the raw material and final product a better chance, or give people who live from grapes and wine a better deal. They need a better income.
Until recently, one third of Tokaj wines were bottled outside the region, which was nonsense. With another third sold by the Tokaj Trading House, it meant that two-thirds of Tokaj’s wines were not quality-oriented, which is far too much for a region’s reputation.
- Plantings
Until recently, only 1,400 ha were replanted in Tokaj. And the vineyards planted before 1990 are bad clones, low density, not in the right place, and managed by people who are not trained to cultivate vineyards.
- The Land Act
A 2014 law aimed at protecting small farmers and family businesses from land grabs by big companies and foreigners puts several private foreign producers – Oremus, Disznókö, and particularly Hétszőlő – in a very difficult position. Only ’natural persons’ may acquire land, while legal entities are excluded from agriculture. István Turóczi, from The Royal Tokaj, says that the “little laws next to the Land Act makes things even worse”.
- Lack of professionalism and research
“There are five research stations in the whole of Hungary with less income than Geisenheim for agriculture in Germany,” says Turóczi. “And I can't remember a single publication these last 30 years!” Good schools and professional training are missing. Expert advice is needed in both the vineyards and cellars.
- Lack of labour and ambition
The population of the area is getting older as the younger generation leaves to seek better prospects in Budapest or abroad. This is one of the greatest challenges facing Tokaj.
- Harvest issues
The 2014 harvest was not a good one to get things moving on in Tokaj. And that shows the difficulty of being a northern-situated vineyard. Tokaj is not an area that can regularly produce fruity, easy-drinking wines at a low price. Tokaj is an exceptional terroir that shows its potential through Botrytis like nowhere else on Earth. But even in the best years, the region can’t produce more than a certain amount of botrytised grapes, and must rely on dry and semi-sweet wines.
Positive directions
- New rules
Since 1 August 2014, wines have to be bottle in the region to be called Tokaj. From 1 August 2015, concentrated must will be forbidden for all dry and semi-sweet wines called Tokaj. A new law states that one kilo of Aszú berries can produce not more than 2.2 L of wine, and that to be called Aszú the wine should have a minimum of 19% potential alcohol and 120 g/L residual sugar; this law should help overall quality.
- Newcomers
A programme called Életpálya will help wineries develop. “We want to bring back young people into the region and into the wine business,” says László Kalocsai, vice president of the Mountain Village Council. Winemaking material and a mobile bottling line will be made available. “Small and big producers should be able to make good wines.”
- New winemaking
The very rich volcanic soils and the crus ('dűlő' in Hungarian) established since 1737 are the basis for quality dry wines. A very impressive range of dry white wines are produced, including Furmint, Hárslevelű, Sárgamuskotály (Muscat) and Kabar. This, added to the other wines produced by the region – late harvest wines, and Szamorodni and Aszú – offer great choice to the consumer.
Meanwhile, villages like Mád, Tállya and Olaszliszka are trying to move things forward by making ‘village wines’. The Szent Tamás Winery, for instance, has invested €7m in a Mád winery. The money has also created a village coffee house, a hotel called Botrytis, a study centre, and a good restaurant.
- Common initiatives
Tokaj Renaissance (created in 1995), the Tokaj Women and Wine Association, and the Mád Circle are producer associations that organise regular events. Another is the Sonoma-Tokaj Sister City Committee, created in 2012, which hosted the newly-formed group FurmintUSA, which promotes dry Furmint in the US.
The Confrérie de Tokaj operates an annual Great Tokaj Wine Auction in April, in the heart of the region. This event attracts buyers from Hungary and abroad, and sells only top quality Tokaj wines from the barrel. In early December, the wines of the Great Tokaj Wine Auction in 2013 were presented at Westminster Cathedral Hall in London to the Hungarian Ambassador and the Circle of Wine Writers.
Another event, bringing together the Tokaj Crown Estates, Tokaj Renaissance and The Mountain Village Council (which represents all the producers in the region), also took place in Tokaj in November and is set to become an annual event. The Tokaji Aszú Day before Christmas shows the great potential of these sweet wines.
While Tokaj faces formidable problems, there are forces mobilising that are aiming to put Tokaj back in its rightful place – as one of the great wine regions of the world.
Tokaj terms
Tokaji is the name for wines from the Tokaj (or Tokay) region. The region produces dry wines, particularly from Furmint, along with botrytised wines: Szamorodni, which is sweet and higher in alcohol; Aszú, made from botrytised berries that are trampled to a paste and which then have must or wine poured over them. Fermentation then proceeds. Eszencia is the juice of aszú berries which runs off from the vats where the berries are collected during harvesting. This rare wine can have a sugar concentration between 500g and 700g per L.
