Grand Tokaj

There are few names in wine as storied as Tokaj. This was the first classified wine region in the world, its vineyards ranked in 1737, decades before Bordeaux formalised its own hierarchy. Its great sweet wine – Tokaji Aszú, made from grapes shrivelled by noble rot – was a favourite of European royal courts, reputedly praised by Louis XIV as the king of wines. Grand Tokaj is the largest producer in this UNESCO-listed landscape, responsible – through its own vineyards and its 1000-plus grower partnerships – for a substantial share of the whole region’s output.

Impressive stuff, but the more interesting (and revealing) story is centred on a person: Károly Áts, its chief winemaker, and one of the most respected figures in Hungarian wine. It was Áts who crafted a Tokaji Essencia – the rarest and most intense expression of the region, made from the free-run juice of aszú berries – that was awarded a perfect 100-point score by Wine & Spirits magazine. His presence confirms that, in Grand Tokaj, size and quality need not pull against each other.

Tokaj’s character is hard-coded into its geography. The volcanic slopes of the Zemplén hills, the convergence of the Tisza and Bodrog rivers, the moist autumn mornings that nurture the all-important botrytis and which are followed by the long afternoon sunshine that ripens and concentrates the infected fruit. It’s a magic spell of factors that combines to make this one of the world’s great terroirs for sweet wine. Grand Tokaj ages its noble wines in the Szegi Cellar, a network of tunnels running more than five kilometres through rock mined four centuries ago.

Beyond the cellar: As the largest producer in the region, Grand Tokaj has its own gravity in Tokaj’s cultural calendar, including taking part in the celebrated Tokaj-Hegyalja Harvest Days each autumn – one of Hungary’s oldest harvest festivals – alongside the region’s other wineries. Its Szegi Cellar doubles as a living library of old and rare vintages, preserving the documented history of a UNESCO-listed landscape for growers and visitors.