Tokaj

Saturday 4 June

This morning Daniel and Amanda had a class to teach in the nearby town of Nyirbator so we spent the morning finishing off our post about Romania.  Daniel and Amanda got home about 1 and shortly after, we set off for Tokaj which is about an hour and a half's drive north west of here.


Tourist map of Tokaj


We had been really looking forward to visiting this town as we had tried a number of sweet dessert Tokay wines from Rutherglen so were looking forward to doing some tastings from the town where the wine originally came from.

After a short walk around the town, we stopped for lunch at a wine bar.  They offered us a choice of tables, either at ground  level or we could go down into the wine cellar to eat.  No choice really, so the cellar it was!  It was beautifully cool although a bit dimly lit.  The waitress spoke little English , but filled any gaps with Hungarian enthusiastically,  so with Daniel's little bit of Hungarian, we managed to order food and drink.




Cellar where we had lunch

After lunch, Daniel asked if they could recommend a good wine shop to visit and although the waitress could understand what he was asking, her English wasn't up to giving us directions so she ended up taking Daniel for a walk into the next street and pointing out her recommendation.  So that was where we went.  It was quite small with only one lady working there but she was great.  Her English was pretty good and she could explain what the various types of Tokaj wine were and who the producers were.  She gave us a taste of dry, semi-sweet and sweet wines as well as a taste of a grape-based Palinka, which is a fruit flavoured white spirit.  The Tokaj's were probably some of the best wines we had tasted so far in our trip so we bought a couple of bottles to take home.

We then wandered further up the street and Daniel and Amanda and I were waiting on the footpath for Derek to take some photos of the river, when a guy in a car pulled into a driveway next to us and said something which we took to mean "come in and try" (there was a sign advertising wine for sale so the assumption was probably quite valid). 




Tisza River




Tisza River


When Derek came back, we wandered in.  The owner took us into a cave which had been hollowed out of the side of a hill.  There were bottles stacked up along the walls and it even had some of the moulds were had seen at Seppeltsfield at Great Western.  He spoke a mixture of Hungarian and German and so with Daniel's minimal Hungarian and Amanda's basic German, we managed to make ourselves understood.  We first asked to try a dry Tokaj so he picks up this metre long glass pipette.  It had a bulb in the middle which combined with the capacity of the tube, could hold an entire bottle of wine.  One would need good lungs for this!  He very carefully put a taste of the wine into a glass and gave it to us to try.  Daniel and Amanda couldn't taste as they were sharing the driving and there is a zero alcohol tolerance in Hungary. 

Again, we really liked his wines but more than that, I really liked watching him draw up the wine from plastic flasks and carefully putting a small taste into a glass.  When we decided what we wanted, he picked out some clean used bottles, filled the pipette up with our selected wine and emptied it into the bottle.  He then picked up a second hand cork and, using a manual cork press, he inserted the corks into the bottles (I think Nic  has one at home). 

Then with much beckoning and talk that we didn't understand, he led us into another part of the cave, turning on lights as he went.  It was a bit slippery underfoot and there were a couple of steps that were difficult to see however it was all worthwhile.  What he had to show us was a storage area where he had extremely old wines - some of them over 50 years old.  The storage area had been in use by his family for over 200 years.  He was clearly very proud to show it to people and we felt lucky to have been able to see it.

Traditional Cellar

On our return home, Daniel and Amanda got ready to drive to Miskolc as it is their first wedding anniversary tomorrow so they are going away for the night.  We will stay here and mind Iago (or he will mind us).

Iago