He asked us to meet him at the gas station, and from there, he would take us for a tasting. Who the hell invites wine critics to a meeting at a gas station instead of at a winery? As we drove along a dirt road that wound between the vineyards, doubts increased. What is he plotting? When we got to the lonely house at the end of the hill, it was evening. Twilight began to spread over the vineyards, painting them in pastoral colors of yellow and red. No one was in or around the half-abandoned house. “Let’s go into the basement,” the winery manager told us in a French accent. Narrow stairs led to a cave in the depths of the earth, barely lit by dim light. Not tempting, to say the least. We went down with him; what to do? His flashlight wandered over the walls covered in black mold (the alcohol that evaporates from the wine barrels stored in the wine cellars in Tokaji is likable to a mushroom that paints all the walls in the rock-hewn caves in black). Where does your imagination wander at this moment? Dracula? Well, things have evolved differently.
Completely different. “Stop” is a command, with the flashlight focused on an antique metal panel fixed to the wall above our heads. We quickly understood the first letters on it written in Hebrew: Baha’i (with the help of the name Blessed). The rest of the text was translated from Hungarian: “In 1895, I replanted the vineyards and built this cellar. Goldstein Samuel.” A shiver went through my body, and it was not from the coldness of the cellar that intensified but from this greeting that one of my Jewish brothers sent me many generations ago. Thank you from the bottom of my heart to Laurent Comas from Pajzos Winery. Sensitivity and wisdom made us understand that the winery headed by him was Jewish-owned before the Holocaust, and the winery respects this male.

Address in Hebrew in the basement of Pajzos Winery
‘Wine of the kings, king of the wines’
Tokaji District is a beautiful region in northeastern Hungary, surrounded by the Zemplén Mountains. The area is located at the confluence of the Bodrog and Tisza rivers and was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2002 and is also known as the home of golden Tokaji wine, whose history goes back to the 16th century even further.
According to local legend, the birth of sweet wine occurred under the influence of coincidence. Once the border was crossed with the Ottoman Empire nearby, the aggressive raids of the Turks imposed constraints on the calm life of the population of the Tokaji area. From time to time, winery workers were forced to leave their homes to hide from the attack. On one occasion, the Ottoman raid during the harvest continued, and the grapes that remained in the vineyards were almost extinct. The winemakers were forced to use what was left and ferment the raisins. It is unknown how accurate the legend is and how it came to be, but Tokaji wine was created simultaneously, from the mid-16th century to the end of the 17th century. This method was revolutionary and was adopted a century later in the famous Sauternes region of France and a century later in the Rhine region.

Vineyards in Tokaji
Tokaji can be grown in 6 varieties, but Furmint is the leading variety in Tokaji and is considered a noble wine like Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, and Riesling. Another variety is Harslevelu (it is essential to know that grapes with high acidity are needed to produce good, sweet wines because only sweet grapes create a dull wine (just as to make good lemonade, you need to add acidity to the sugar water). Their high acidity balances the sweet Tokaji wines.
To produce sweet wines, sweet grapes should be used (unless the dessert wine is a fortified wine). One way to do this is to shrink the grapes (by drying them in the sun or a cold, dry wind) until you get a concentrated and very sweet raisin, whose must is fermented into wine. Another way that Tokaji and Sauternes are used is through a fungus called Botrytis Cinereal, which settles on the grape and draws its fluids from it. Botrytis attacks the grape and kills all the living cells in it. But with the death of the grape, i.e., the end of sucking the water out of it, the botrytis also dies. Just before he takes out the white botrytis flowers. When the grape color changes from gray to brown, this is when the process is over, and it is time to pick the grape. Aszu grape is dried fruit and can hold in this condition without cooling for a long time. Its sugar content is high, and its taste is unusual because of the fungus.

Cluster with aszú raisins (Photo by Disznoko Winery)
A concept that needs to be known is Puttonyos. This is a measure of 25 liters of raisins soaked with dry wine in the ratio of a pound of raisins with a liter of dry wine to create a sweet Tokaji wine. Of course, the more raisins you add, the greater the sweetness of the wine. How sweet are Tokaji wines? The basic wines of 3 Puttonyos will start with 60 g of sugar per liter, while the 5 Puttonyos wine will stand at about 130 g per liter and 6 Puttonyos at about 160 g per liter. Essencia (a very concentrated extract of the wine, produced in minimal quantities and usually tasted with a spoon) will stand at an insane level of about 600 g per liter. People with diabetes – beware….
Aszu is considered “cream de la cream” of all Tokaji wines, except the Essencia. Only 5 and 6 Puttonyos wines can be called aszu. We will focus in this article on these wines, which compete successfully with the best dessert wines in the world. The legend is that King Louis XV of France told his lover, Madame de Pompadour, as he handed her a glass of Tokaji aszu: “This is the wine of the kings and the king of wines.”
"Blessed am I who drink thee”
The production of Tokaji wine is labor-intensive, and its preparation involves a risk to the winemaker. The harvest begins with grapes used to make dry wine. A winemaker will usually want some of the crop harvested at this point during August to reduce the risk. An additional wait may cause the entire crop to become extinct due to hail, rain, or pests. If he was lucky and these did not harm the crop, it may be that the weather conditions will not allow the prosperity of the noble mushroom to flourish. The second vintage will be for late-vintage wine making and Szamorondi wine. The vintage is manual, but whole clusters are picked, including grapes that have not been infected with botrytis. The third and latest vintage is used for aszu and Essencia wines. In this vintage, only the grapes that have reached the appropriate raisin size will be able to be harvested. The rest of the grapes will remain on the vine and wait for the fourth and fifth harvest deep into November …. Vintager can pick 5-10 kilos of shriveled aszu grapes on a working day. Therefore, Tokaji aszu wine is relatively expensive: it is made from raisins in small quantities, with hard manual labor, while taking considerable risks. Therefore, these are wines that only the rich and noble could afford to buy throughout history.

Grade ripening of Tokaji (Photo: Disznoko Winery)
Pope Benedict XVI was known as a Tokaji lover. When Empress Maria Theresa sent him a bottle of wine as a gift, he said: “Blessed be the soil that hath grown thee, blessed be the woman who sent thee, and blessed am I who drink thee.”
Tokaji aszu wine must be aged for at least a year and a half in the barrel. Many miles of tunnels were hewn in the basalt soil beneath every village in the Tokaji area, where the wine is aged in barrels. The tunnels were designed to protect the wine from invaders who flooded the plains of Hungary from time to time. Still, their importance in wine production is maintaining a constant temperature throughout the year. The walls of the tunnels are covered with black fungus, which feeds on the moisture in the air and the alcohol that evaporates from the barrels. The fungus, which looks quite awful, retains moisture in the tunnel and purifies its air.

Tunnel entrance in Tokaji
The Furmint grape
What's the taste of Tokaji aszu?
“I could drink this wine all summer, all day” said wine critic Genesis Robinson.
Furmint grape is produced in tiny quantities around the world, with 80% of it in Hungary and 14% in Slovenia. It has recently begun to be planted in experimental quantities in the Napa Valley in California, South Africa, and Australia. It is amazing in his versatility. It knows how to express the terroir to completely different wines. Some of the wines will be bone-dry and acidic or rich and hedonistic. In recent years the grape has gained a lot of interest among wine lovers, mainly due to the exciting wines produced in Hungary.
Young Tokaji wine will always be fresh, with fresh fruit flavors like apricot, peach, and fig. From aging in the barrel, the wine will get flavors of vanilla and toffee. Over the years, the fresh fruit flavors will change to dried fruit flavors, such as dill, dried apricot, and nutty and caramel flavors. One of the characteristics of Tokaji is the impressive length of flavors. By drinking the wine, the flavors will remain on your palate even long minutes after sipping from it. It can be enjoyed with ripe or blue cheese or spicy food. If you drink it with dessert, make sure the dessert is not too sweet. But it’s best to enjoy a glass of Tokaji on its own. Alone on the house porch, in a moment of relaxation upon returning from work, in an intimate moment with your spouse, or in any other contemplative situation, where this drink of the gods melts in your mouth and reality melts with it.


The Jewish winemakers of Tokaji
From time immemorial, foreigners settling in Hungary have had crucial importance in Tokaji’s economic life. From the 13th century Italian, Greek, Armenian, Jews, and German families were involved in the Tokaji wine trade and inhabited this area. This is similar to the Bordeaux wine region, from the 19th century onwards, where famous chateaus were mainly in the hands of foreigners (mostly English). The first written document mentioning the purchase of wine by Jews was created in 1609. Beginning in the 18th century, the migration of Jews, who came mainly from the East, accelerated. In the first half of the 19th century, Judaism was a dominant ethnic group in the wine region. This provoked resentment that a significant portion of the land had fallen into the wrong hands. In 1798 a royal decree forbade Jews to trade or make Tokaji aszu wine. This regulation also prohibited the cultivation and maintenance of vineyards. In 1808 the Jews requested that the wine trade be removed from the restrictions imposed on them in a letter of petition. Defense counsel argued that the wine trade was dying out and that Jews were not paying taxes due to the ban. In 1839-40 bills convenient for Jews were adopted in Parliament. From then on, Jews could also purchase land. From the beginning of the 19th century, there is evidence that Jews also produced kosher aszú. Over the years, Jewish winemakers and wine merchants have introduced innovations in the wine industry. For example, if barrels were often smeared with lard in the past, the Jews introduced the use of roasted oak barrels treated with sulfur. The wandering Jewish character allowed them to be the leading distributors of innovation and modernization. Today these methods are self-evident to us; however, in the 19th century, these processes, in many ways, were a revolutionary breakthrough in wine production technology. The Jewish wine merchants, who occupied the central part of the wine trade in the area, were helped because they could also rely on their family relationships in the Polish territories. 1875 – 1897, the phylloxera epidemic destroyed half of the country’s vineyards. At the beginning of the 20th century, Jewish investors were also pioneers in restoring the vineyards. As a result, the territories under Jewish control reached a peak in the early 20th century. In April 1944, the Hungarian government deprived the Hungarian population of Jewish descent of their rights. In practice, their property has officially been declared the “Hungarian Nation” property; however, it was stolen or destroyed.
The Zimmerman family and Royal Tokaji Winery
Before the war, the Zimmerman family-owned vineyards over large areas, a winery, and a wine-aging cellar in Mad, a village in Tokaji. The family winery won awards at wine competitions in 1892 in Berlin and 1896 in Paris. In April 1944, Susanna Zimmerman and her family were sent to Auschwitz. Most of the family was exterminated there, and about 450,000 other Hungarian Jews were. Susanna survived the liberation of the camp by the Americans in 1945. She settled in San Francisco and started a family there. Over the years, she joined an organized wine tour in Hungary, which also visited Tokaji. To her surprise, she recognized in the village the house where she lived, the vineyard, and the wine cellar, which the Royal Tokaji winery now owns. The winery purchased the vineyards and the winery from private individuals, who bought them from the state when the privatization of the lands was carried out with the fall of communism. Suzanna’s children, now 90, did not ask Royal Tokaji for anything other than a mention of the Zimmerman family’s part of the winery’s website and the setting of a memorial plaque on the wall of the house. After negotiations with the winery that lasted about a year, the winery agreed to their request. In a modest ceremony attended by Susanna, several family members and two who represented the winery were unveiled above the metal panel in 2016.
The Hungarian government “robbed” the Jewish community twice: once during the war, when it collaborated with the Nazis, and once again after, when the communist government nationalized their lands and property. The government gave only little compensation to the remnants of the Jews after the Holocaust. A Hungarian joke says that “Communism is a system that applies anti-Jewish laws to the entire population.”

A memorial plaque to the Zimmerman family at the entrance to the Royal Tokaji Winery
Where to stay in Tokaji
The ancient synagogue
The prices in Hungary are favorable for westerns and in Tokaji, which is far from the capital, the prices are even more favorable, even for the luxurious ones in the hotels.
Gróf Degenfeld is a romantic castle converted into an elegant hotel. The hotel has a winery and vineyards that you can take a morning walk to, to whet your appetite for the wonderful breakfast. The hotel has an open pool and a beautiful garden.
Andrássy Rezidencia Wine & Spa is a 5-star hotel with spa and beautiful swimming pool located in a spacious mansion. Delicious dinner.
Barta– stay in a 17th-century mansion with its carefully decorated rooms or the less formal guest house belonging to the hotel. The estate has a winery known for its wines.
The Synagogue of Mad was founded in the 17th century by Hasidim from Galicia and is known as one of the most beautiful in Hungary. The synagogue, located on a hill overlooking the royal vineyards of the Tokaji Hegyalja area, is one of the oldest surviving synagogues in Hungary. It is one of the stops on a busy route of pilgrims to the tombs of the righteous and Jewish sites in the vicinity of Debrecen. The synagogue is decorated with Polish-Lithuanian influences, a fantastic stage, and four pillars that support the spectacular space in its beauty. It was built in 1795 and served the local Jewish population for more than 150 years. Following the deportation of all 300 residents of the town to Auschwitz during World War II, the synagogue was closed permanently. It was restored after about thirty years of being desolate, its roof collapsed, and it was open to rain and snow. It underwent extensive restoration at the beginning of the 21st century, courtesy of the World Monuments Foundation and the Hungarian government. Since the restoration, the synagogue has served as a cultural center, museum, and exhibition hall. A beautiful hostel was built near the synagogue for worshipers and visitors. Marian Frank, who has lived in Israel for three years and speaks Hebrew, runs the place and is also happy to give tips to travelers in the area. Chabad maintains the building to this day and pays Marian’s salary. Groups of non-Jews come to visit the synagogue and Hasidim with roots in Hungary. In the synagogue, weddings and bar mitzvahs are held from time to time for the descendants of those Hasidim.


Gróf Degenfeld hotel
The old synagogue in Mad