Hungary's winemaking history is at once ancient and also newborn - the word "wine" itself might be derived from Latin, but there are in fact only three European languages with a name for the fermented grape beverage that pre-dates Latin, that is Greek, Basque and Hungarian (where it is known as "bor"), alluding to winemaking in Hungary going all the way back to the Romans in the 5th century (uniquely Hungary is home to an extensive number of cellars that have been carved out into rock caverns, many over a century old) - yet at the same time, four decades of Communist rule has meant that it wasn't till 1989 when Hungary emerged from the regime's spectre that privately-owned commercial winemaking that prioritised quality over state mandated quantity could be pursued. Through that lens, Hungary can be understood to possess a deep, intuitive, almost ancestral understanding of the craft, yet at the same time is also quickly finding its place in modern winemaking.
Hungary's sweet Aszu wines are some of the earliest to be naturally made from botrytised fruit.
Whilst still fairly under the radar, most of anyone who has heard of Hungarian winemaking would likely first talk of the country's legendary sweet Tokaji wines ("Tokaji" to mean "from Tokaj", the famed northeastern region of Hungary that borders on Slovakia) known as Aszu. Made from local varieties such as Furmint (pronounced Foor-mint), which stands as Hungary's flagship and predominant grape, and to a minor extent Harslevelu (pronounced Harsh-leh-veh-lew), Tokaji's sweet Aszu wines come from fruit that is subject to the noble rot which causes the botrytis needed to puncture the grape's skins which then allows for the water in the fruit to evaporate, thus concentrating its sugars, acids and flavours, with the resulting shrivelled grape carrying an unparalleled intensity, that is then fermented and vinified. Nevertheless this naturally occurring phenomenon requires incredibly specific conditions for it to take place, with cool, humid mornings and warm, sunny afternoons needed for the botrytis mold to grow, and a subsequent dry and sunny autumn that then raisins the fruit into harvest season - that all said, even as Tokaji has been home to its famed sweet wines for 400 years, each year's harvest is never guaranteed, and remains very much a force of nature.
A cluster with shrivelled botrytised fruit.
How The World's Most Prized Sweet Furmint Wine Went Dry
As it turns out, into the year 2000 millennium vintage, that season's summer and autumn was so terribly hot and dry that it became difficult for the botrytis mold to set in, which resulted in an inadequate harvest. This had followed the bountiful 1999 vintage - often billed as the first great post-Communist vintage for Hungary - and thus Istvan Szepsy Sr., undisputedly Hungary's greatest modern winemaker, would together with fellow pioneer Zoltan Demeter, decide to make an experimental dry Furmint from the harvest yielded at the first tier Uragya vineyard ("Uragya" translating as "God's bed", pronounced as Oor-ah-dya). In all fairness, this certainly wasn't the first time a dry Furmint was made in Hungary or even showcased to an international audience, with dry Furmint itself having always served as the base wine with which the botrytised Furmint that was pounded into a paste would be left to soak in as part of the sweet Aszu winemaking process. That said, it should be noted that the quality and vinification with which these base wines were made, given that they were destined to be macerated with the sweet Aszu fruit, is starkly different from the making of a complete dry wine in and of itself (thus making it not a matter of simply skipping the addition of Aszu grapes and bottling the base wine), the process of which was little understood and explored in Hungary given the historical focus on sweet wines.
And so what was nevertheless the difference that ultimately mattered was not only Szepsy's decision to bottle and formally commercialise it alongside the classic sweet wines, but also the quality with which the dry Furmint was made, with the 2000 vintage hailing from a single top-tier vineyard, which was then vinified to an impressive quality, so much so that the wine world simply had to rethink what it knew of Furmint. This would become the shot heard around the world and would put Hungary firmly back on the international wine community's map. Its success would spur a literal Furmint revolution in Hungary, where today its dry wines make up some 70% of production and have in just over two decades become the bedrock for Hungarian winemaking.
Istvan Szepsy comes from a long line of winemakers that essentially bookend the Hungarian winemaking story.
The Family That Defined Hungary's Wines
Years before Szepsy would open the floodgates to Hungary's dry Furmint, he had already spent much of his life and career tending to the country's historic vineyards, demonstrating a great love and understanding for what has been for so long hidden from the world, and in so doing had built for himself a reputation as the man to meet when it came to Hungarian winemaking - if anyone knew about Hungary's wines, it was surely Istvan Szepsy Sr. Szepsy had come from a winemaking family - again inarguably the Hungarian winemaking family - his lineage dating back to Szepsi Laczko Mate, the man credited with having formally documented the original set of instructions to making the legendary Tokaji Aszu sweet wines in 1631.
Now as the story goes, Szepsi was a priest who therefore tended to the vines and made wines as part of his practice. He had been educated abroad and would subsequently report to the Gyorgy Rakoczi, the 17th century Lord of Tokaj. Even then Tokaj was already understood to be important to the kingdom as its sweet wines were so highly prized - more than gold, in fact - and were thus able to help finance its fight for independence. The wine trade of the region had been entrusted to Rakoczi's wife, Zsuzsanna Lorantffy, who would oversee its commercial viability and it is said that it was her who together with Szepsi had instructed for a delayed harvest in light of an imminent Turkish invasion. When they were able to finally make harvest, they had found grapes that were botrytised and shrivelled, which Szepsi went on to make wines with anyway, thereby creating the sweet Hungarian Aszu wine. Lorantffy would thus have Szepsi document his work, thereby creating the first formally defined process for making sweet Aszu wines. Szepsi's instructions are still used today, even some almost four centuries later. And thus in many regards, it is no exaggeration to say that the Szepsy family with its winemaking since the 1500's is synonymous with Hungarian winemaking then and now, bookending the country's wine story.
How Tokaji Sweet Wines Are Made And Classified
These sweet wines were thus made by laboriously hand-harvesting the shrivelled botrytised fruit separately from the cluster (which is typically a jumble of both botrytised and unaffected fruit) and then gently crushed into a sweet paste, which would then be macerated and soaked in a dry base wine or fermenting must which is then vinified and then left to age in Hungarian oak. Historically, the sweetness level of the wine was measured and controlled by the number of puttonyos, or baskets of Aszu paste, that was added to the base wine, which led to the wines being labelled and tiered from 3 puttonyos (minimum of 60 grams of sugar / liter), all the way up to 6 puttonyos (minimum of 150 grams of sugar / liter). A wine would have to be 5 puttonyos (or minimum of 120 grams of sugar / liter) to be considered Aszu, whilst other variations of Hungarian sweet wines include Szamorodni (pronounced as Sah-mo-rod-nee, to mean "as it comes") where botrytised fruit and unaffected fruit would be harvested together and co-fermented to produce a semi-sweet wine, and right at the highest tier, Eszencia, which comes from the free-run juice that is naturally yielded from the weight of the Aszu grapes stacking on top of one another, and punches in at a whopping 450 grams or more of sugar / liter, and thus requires 10 years for fermentation to complete, producing just 3% ABV that is then served as just a tablespoon!
Uniquely, Tokaj was perfectly positioned to produce such wines with the Bodrog and Tisza rivers running through the undulating foothills of the Zemplen Mountains which allows for misty, humid autumn mornings and warm, sunny afternoons that is ripe for the Noble Rot to form and for the fruit to raisinate. Compounded by Furmint's natural high acidity and the volcanic terroir of clay and loess that brought mineral complexity, Tokaj's sweet wines were unparalleled and often likened to a revitalising elixir of honey, apricot, saffron and marmalade.
The sweet wines would thus of course go on to take the European world by storm, with accounts of everyone from Catherine the Great stationing a whole Cossack regiment with the sole purpose of escorting a shipment of the wines to St. Petersburg, to King Louis XIV of France proclaiming the wines as Vinum Regum, Rex Vinorum or the "Wine of Kings, Kings of Wines", where it would pick up the name Tokay as it came to be served in the Royal Court of Versailles. It would go on to become the gift of choice for the likes of Emperor Franz Josef, who would send Queen Victoria a parcel of bottles each year for her birthday the equivalent of one bottle for every month she had lived (which meant 972 bottles for her 81st and last birthday), as well as the muse of the likes of Beethoven, Liszt, Schubert, Bram Stoker and Voltaire, and is today even written into the national anthem of Hungary. By the 1730's, Tokaji Aszu had become so reputable that it became the focus of the world's first official vineyard classification - over 120 years before Bordeaux's 1855 classification - and would also be royally decreed as the first of its kind protected and closed wine appellation - preceding the creation of the Spanish DO and Italian DOC by more than 200 years - making clear that sweet Tokaji wines could only be produced in Tokaj, whose vineyards were graded from Great First Growths to First Growths, Second Growths and finally Third Growths.
Tokaj is uniquely placed to produce sweet wines given its vicinity to the Bodrog and Tisza rivers.
The Father Of Modern Day Hungarian Winemaking
Yet by the 1900's Hungary would go through a prolonged series of hardships that would see its famous sweet wines fall out of sight - from Phylloxera to numerous wars, followed by a Communist regime that sought to control and maximise output over all else, Tokaj's wines would only regain the clarity and gusto it needed to compete in the new wine world order in 1989 when the nation would start its chapter as a democratic republic. And so just as Tokaj had seen much transformation in the past several decades, so had 17th-generation Istvan Szepsy Sr. Szepsy who would grow up and study in Budapest before tragedy struck and he had lost his father, also a winemaker, at a young age, prompting him to move to Paris frustrated with Hungary's state of affairs. Yet just as Szepsy Sr. had contemplated leaving Hungary for good, he would fatefully find himself dreaming of Tokaj for three consecutive nights, a sign he took as his destiny to return and carry on his family's tradition. Upon returning in 1970, he would serve as the horticulturalist and technical director for the Rakoczi State Cooperative, overseeing a staggering 900 hectares of vineyards. Under the Communist regime, there was in effect but one sole state wine producing entity, and individual growers were disallowed from producing their own wines, and had to simply funnel their fruit, juices or fermenting musts to the state cooperative whose focus was on cheap, mass-market wines. Nevertheless, during this time, which Szepsy Sr. said that he had little choice but to do whatever the state directed him to do, he would maintain a small 4-hectare family vineyard in secret, which served as a proverbial flame representing his family's tradition that he would fight to protect and keep alive.
Cool, misty mornings in Mád.
By 1989, in an event that would change the course of world history, the Berlin Wall fell and the Communist Bloc was finally dismantled, which whilst having global ramifications, would in Szepsy Sr.'s small part of the world mean that the state-run monopoly that he had for decades had to serve under was now dissolved, allowing for Hungarian winemaking to be liberated once again. This meant that Szepsy Sr. was now able to make a full fledged, formal return to his family's tradition of making sweet Tokaji wines. Immediately Szepsy Sr. would venture to reignite quality Tokaji Aszu making, first aiding the efforts of Royal Tokaji (established together with famed wine historian Hugh Johnson, amongst others) through the 90's, working to unite over 60 independent Hungarian growers into a collective that would protect them from state homogenisation after the end of the Soviet era, and then later joining Kiralyudvar (together with Anthony Hwang, who also owns the cult Loire sweet winemaker Domaine Huet), all whilst putting together his own Szepsy Pince winery. It was thus at Kiralyudvar that Szepsy would together with Zoltan Demeter fatefully produce the first commercially acclaimed vintage of dry Furmint! Today, all three remain at the forefront of Tokaji winemaking.
Nevertheless by 2006, Szepsy Sr. was ready to finally make it on his own, with high altitude vineyards spanning some 52 hectares divided across 22 individual vineyard parcels that range six municipalities (over 80% classified as First Growth crus, which are part of only one-eighth of all classified vineyards in Tokaj), predominantly surrounding the Szepsy's ancestral home village of Mád (pronounced Mahd). The soils here are steep and stony, composed of a panoply of minerals from zeolite to quartz, clay to rhyolite tuff (which Hungary is famous for), with many more that Szepsy Sr. has sought to identify through his meticulous documentarian work mapping out Tokaj's terroirs, vineyards and genetic biodiversity, which he has for decades studied their effects on Furmint. The vineyards are therefore unsurprisingly predominantly planted with Furmint, with also some smaller holdings of Harslevelu and Sarga Muskotaly, with the vines averaging 40-50 years old (making them old vine Furmints) - yet, not just any Furmint, Szepsy Sr. has also experimented extensively (testing some 300 clones, and mapping every of his vines together with the University of Debrecen) to identify the most ideal clonal selections, having pointed out that much of Hungary's Furmint originate from Soviet-era clones that are poorly adapted. His extensive research has laid the formative groundwork for a better international understanding and appreciation for Hungary's ancient soils and have allowed other growers to pursue greater quality.
Into The Vineyards And Cellars Of Szepsy
In the vineyards, Szepsy Sr. applies rigorous sustainable farming practices focused on quality, avoiding the use of synthetic chemicals with also the use of crop thinning, reduced yields and subsequently parcel-by-parcel vinification. Much of the work in the vineyards is by hand, employing the use of Guyot, low-head and terraced training systems, with also a focus on canopy management, pruning and harvesting done manually. With his extensive mapping work, Szepsy Sr. demarcates various key single vineyards, most notable of which being his Szent Tamas, Uragya, Urban, Percze, Betsek, Hasznos and Nyulaszo. Szepsy Sr. has also constantly worked to identify forgotten parcels, replant, restore and revitalise vineyards, which have together with his body of work garnered the man essentially every award imaginable for a winemaker, taking home key national awards such as the Lifetime Achievement Award from Hungary's Wine Academy, along with international titles and awards such as the Les Signeurs du Vin and the Golden Vines Hall of Fame Award, whose past inductees include the likes of Aubert de Villaine (Domaine de la Romanee Conti, France), Egon Müller (Weingut Egon Müller, Germany), Angelo Gaja (Gaja, Italy), Alain Vauthier (Chateau Ausone, France), Pablo Alvarez (Vega Sicilia, Spain), Jean Trimbach (Maison Trimbach, France), and also key critics such as Jasper Morris MW and Jancis Robinson OBE MW.
In the cellars, Szepsy Sr. remains resolute on never adding anything to the grapes after pressing, keeping everything fully natural, with then the use of a proprietary mother yeast that is used to kickstart fermentation (that has to be specially prepared two weeks before harvest). Depending on the style of wines, fermentation takes place in either tanks or barrels, with malolactic fermentation allowed but never forced, although Szepsy Sr. tends to lean on the side of preserving freshness. Whilst the sweet Aszu wines are macerated for about 48 hours and then left to ferment in oak barrels for up to 3 months, the dry Furmints are macerated for 12-24 hours, and are then left to ferment for 3-4 weeks in a combination of stainless steel tanks and oak barrels, vinified separately by parcel. They are then aged in 300 litre Hungarian Quercus Petraea oak barrels sourced from similar volcanic soil forests, thus keeping the elevage as local as possible, which then ultimately yields a range of dry Furmints that are distinguished by single vineyard origins, with just one single varietal Furmint expression, along with the classic range of Aszu, Szamorodni and Eszencia - notably Szepsy does not produce any second wines, with all wines that do not make the cut sold off as bulk. Today just over two-thirds of Szepsy's wines are dry wines, with only 50,000 bottles produced from the family-owned and managed winery annually.
Szepsy Jr. and Sr., with their family's coat of arms, having received the title of nobility in 1632 from Emperor Rudolf II.
A New Chapter Unfolds
Thanks to the work of fellow Hungarian Akos Forczek, who founded UK fine wine merchant Top Selection, along with the work of numerous sommeliers and wine communicators, Szepsy's wines were finally brought to the international stage into the 2000's which allowed for its gaining of proper recognition. Unfortunately in 2019, Szepsy Sr. would suffer a stroke which whilst he thankfully survived, has expedited a transmittance to the next generation that is led by Szepsy Jr, the 18th-generation successor to the Szepsy lineage.
Not one to rest on their laurels, the Szepsy's - both father and son, along with the rest of their family - have continued to push for greater innovation in Hungary's wines, constantly raising the benchmark, firmly entrenching their wines as amongst the world's greatest.Szepsy uniquely uses glass stopper tops instead of corks for its dry Furmints, pioneering a counter against premature oxidation, whilst also having successfully canvassed for amendments that have now allowed Tokaj's wines to be bottled for the first time ever in large magnum and jeroboam formats, aligning itself with international standards. Szepsy Jr would also play a pivotal role in using the methode traditionelle (that is used for Champagne-making) to produce sparkling Tokaj wines once winemaking laws were amended in 2009, and would together with his father, Szepsy Sr, help to establish the Mád Origin Control which has been forced since 2021, serving to establish the Mád as its own regulated appellation, an effort that has been 15 years in the making.
With all of that said, it's now time to try two of Szepsy's most famous dry Furmint wines! Let's go!
PS. Szepsy's wines were showcased in Singapore - at the one and only Praelum Wine Bistro, home to some of the country's best sommeliers - as part of a sommelier exchange between Wines of Hungary and the Sommelier Association of Singapore! Several members of the Sommelier Association of Singapore have even written a piece on their visit to Hungary - read it here! Big cheers to Gerald, Vanessa, Jerry, Alvin, Xi Yang and Jaclene for organising the tasting!
| Read: Between Roots and Reinvention: Hungary’s Wine Regions in Transition
Wine Review: Szepsy Uragya Tokaji Furmint
The vineyard best known for putting dry Furmint on the map, Uragya is translated as "the bed of the Lord" or "God bless it", and sits on the western border of Mád. With its steep, south-east facing parcels, the soils here are a volcanic mix of rhyolite tuff, dacite and quartzs, that is topped by a thin layer of top soil and red clay, which is said to produce complex, mineral driven wines. The vines here were planted from the 60's to the 80's, with the fruit hand-harvested in small batches. Upon harvest, the fruit is crushed whole bunch and barrel fermented, with spontaneous fermentation in new and one year old 300 litre Hungarian oak barrels, after which it is rested for 3-7 months on the lees.
This is the Uragya 63, with the "63" denoting the exact parcel within the vineyard, which is only 1.24 hectares in size! This is the 2022 vintage.
Tasting Notes
Colour: Straw
Aroma: Opens perfumed with scents of French vanilla and mocha, floral notes of lavender, rather candied and doughy, with also a dab of mint jelly. It's supple and pillowy with delicate yet pronounced fruits of green apples, lemons and quince. Really clean and defined, and incredibly aromatic. There's then an undercurrent of mineral springs and wet stone that glide beneath, giving it a lift.
Taste: Medium-bodied, creamy yet clean, the minerality comes through more prominently here with wet stones that underscore the bounty of exotic tropical fruits of dried mangoes, peaches and passionfruit. It's coaxed in with confectionary tones of honey, vanilla, marzipan and earl grey, with again a touch of mint. Incredibly fragrant, it's leaner here with more polished detail. A bit of doughiness still, with a bright, polished yet gentle acidity.
Finish: The creaminess carries through with a moderate saturation, still lots of aromatics that power on with such vigor, mangoes and pineapples, some cedar, French vanilla and coffee that surfaces through the seamless and clean finish.
My Thoughts
A very powerful yet elegant expression! It's got incredible vigor and expressiveness, yet at the same time is strikingly polished and taut. The fruits, florals and spices galore are bountiful, so incredibly persistent in their fragrance, and yet the body is delicately leaner and more chiselled with an understated tension that gives this wine such dimensionality. It moves in multiple directions, but each so boldly and captivating. There's the sense that the acidity here is high yet its very much polished to the point of glossiness that it simply glides the wine, giving it a lifted touch that keeps it fresh and exciting. Without overripeness, the fruits are moderately saturated, also allowing that intense undercurrent of minerality of wet stones and mineral springs to show through, equally persistent as its acidity in guiding the wine seamlessly forward. A truly impressive expression that is thoroughly enchanting.
Wine Review: Szepsy Szent Tamas Tokaji Furmint
Szent Tamas (or Saint Thomas) is arguably Szepsy's most famous flagship single vineyard. It lies on steeply sloped volcanic soils in eastern Mád that is composed of porous rock, red iron-rich clay and sandy quartz, where the broader 70 hectare Szent Tamas vineyard largely holds zeolite, rhyolite tuff and red clay, sat some 140-230m above sea level. Similarly the fruit here is hand-harvested in small batches, where it is then crushed whole bunch and barrel fermented, with spontaneous fermentation in new and one year old 300 litre Hungarian oak barrels, after which it is rested for 3-7 months on the lees.
This is the Szent Tamas 46, the "46" referencing a specific 0.98 hectare plot that was planted in 1957, making these vines incredibly old and low yielding. This is the 2024 vintage.
Tasting Notes
Colour: Straw
Aroma: Super perfumed, with lush florals and aromatics of lavender and vanilla beans over cream, with also French coffee giving it a richness and just a tint of roastiness. It's candied with a side of mint and acacia honey, that wraps around undertones of exotic tropical fruits of mangoes, passionfruit and pineapples. There's a waft of flint and gravel that hovers over, with then some leaner threads of toasted biscuits and almonds that outlines the aromas.
Taste: Medium-bodied, really plush and rich, at the same time big on that wet stone and mineral spring minerality, with also a slightly candied and waxy quality. It's concentrated and precise at the core, with tropical fruits of mangoes, pineapples and apricots, that's then cusped by that decadent and aromatic roastiness of French coffee. It's got great tension and vibrant yet firm acidity, with layers of fruit, minerals and earthiness. Just a touch of mint jelly as well.
Finish: More on the mint, and fruits of apricots, pineapples and mangoes, here with also some lavender and elderflowers. It's alittle more doughy and resinous, with still that undercurrent of mineral springs and a line of chalkiness. French coffee then through the clean and rich finish.
My Thoughts
Decidedly heftier, moreish and yet at the same time retaining that complexity and captivating expressiveness! Certainly there's more body here and therefore richness that does paint over its structure and lift, yet it does seem to wonderfully retain that definition and even more so demonstrate great tension. It's more bountiful with still those exotic florals and tropical fruits, underscored by more of a toastiness, the minerality here more flinty and less so of wet stone, giving it a plusher more decadent quality. It feels more bold and forward, trading off some of the lighter, delicate aspects, for somemore more commanding and with perhaps more stature. Really luscious and equally enchanting!
Kanpai!
@111hotpot
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