Országos Borkirálynő Választás

“The foggy Bald Mountain of Tokaj in the distance is like the old, historic guard at the gates of the Hungarian Canaan.” This is how Hungarian author Gyula Krúdy described Tokaj at the beginning of the 20th century; this little town of medieval origins, and its breathtaking natural surroundings.
It is, indeed, the Hungarian Canaan that awaits the visitors in Tokaj, at the confluence of the Rivers Tisza and Bodrog. The banks of the meeting rivers and the rocky feet of the Bald Mountain covered by yellow soil serve as the natural boundaries of the city. The slopes of the old mountain speak of centuries-old viticulture, while the mountain top is a grove, from where you can see the nature reserve of the Nook of the Tisza and the Bodrog.
“The gods of joy live on this mountain, and send their apostles, the little bottled golden flames, to tell peoples that our world is not the valley of tears.” A lot of visitors came to see how the world-famous wine was made, as early as the 17th-18th centuries, and they were not likely to contradict the Hungarian poet’s Petőfi’s words.

This little town of about 5000 inhabitants is the centre of Hungary’s most outstanding white wine producing region, and was declared a world heritage site for its cultural importance in 2002. The famous Tokaj wine, the wine of kings and the king of wines, as Louis XIV put it, was also named after the city.

Both the wine and the city obtained their present high rank in the 1500s. The main varietals on the plantations were/are Furmint, Hárslevelű, and Muscat Lunel. The base, premium, szamorodni, and aszú wines age in the mould covered cellars. The making of szamorodni wine is connected to the Polish origin of the word (samo rodnij), meaning ‘as it was born’. Bunches are harvested as they are, healthy and botrytised berries together. After the Ottoman Empire had broken up, wine export came to be more important. As the whole region started to sell its drink as Tokaj wine, the principal national authorities regulated wine export; an act that can be regarded as protection of origins. Finally, a royal decree in 1737 enumerated the villages where vineyards were classified to be suitable for making Tokaj wine. This is how the first closed wine region of the world was born.

During the centuries various different ethnic groups (Saxons, Germans, Poles, Romanians, Jews, and Armenians) settled in the Tokaj Foothills, and they all enriched the region with their religion, architecture, and traditions. Today, it is not only the remains of folk architecture that represent high value in Tokaj, but also the buildings of the aristocracy and the middle class from the 16th-19th centuries. The center of Tokaj is the Kossuth Square. It is surrounded by mansion houses from the 18th-19th centuries. In the middle of the square, on the top of a high column stands the bronze statue of King Stephan, the founder of the Hungarian state. It is a work of László Péterfy, and was put into its place in 2000. On the right side, a broken column serves as a platform for the bronze map of the Foothills. The peculiarity of the Roman Catholic Church of the square is its eastern exposure. It does not follow the architectural tradition, but makes the square absolutely impressing. South of the church on the left, there is the central building of a past estate with the Rákóczi wine cellar under it, and the Bacchus well in front of it. Bacchus is a significant figure of the folklore of the Tokaj Foothills, and the Bacchus statue of Péter Szanyi from 1988 hides a well, a present from Tokaj’s German twin town of the Rhine region, Östrich-Winkel.

People say that Tokaj is a town of grape and wine, although its becoming a world heritage site is also due to the fact that the town has been a significant part of national and international cultural and literary life for centuries. Think of the Jesuit Samuel Timon, the castellan Ferenc Némethi who composed his psalms here, Bálint Balassi who spent a year in Tokaj, Nicolaus Lenau who spent a part of his childhood in the town, or the Workshop of Authors that hosts the most outstanding representatives of literary life every year. The spiritual heritage of the town is cared for and is on display in the Museum of Tokaj, in a building that used to be the property of a Greek merchant, in the close neighborhood of the Kossuth Square. The ornamented rooms of the historic building, and its Mediterranean-like inner garden radiate an eastern atmosphere. Another caretaker of the spiritual and cultural heritage of the town, the neo Moor synagogue—being transferred into a cultural and conference centre—together with famous events like the Wine Festival and the Harvest Festival, or the open-air programs of the Patkó Mine attract thousands of visitors to the town each year. The wine citadel has become by now one of the cultural centers of North Hungary.