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This description of the making of Tokaji Aszu is accurate yet romanticized, for until recently all Tokaji wines were made by the centralized State Farm in industrial quantities, with not a putton in sight. Only small farms would have blended mash and wine in the actual quantities specified above. Yet the State Farm adhered to the correct proportions of mash and wine, thus maintaining the authenticity of Tokaji Aszu.
The State Farm is now the Tokaj Trading House Co, and some joint venture companies are already releasing their own bottlings of Tokaji wines. Because of the lengthy ageing process, it will be a decade before independent wineries will be able to release wines made from scratch, but their aim is a return to the single-vineyard aszu wines that were the glory of the region. The extensive vineyards of the State Farm made remarkably good wines given the scale of its operations, but the breakdown into smaller units is bound to increase the quality considerably.
In the years ahead the stature of Tokaji wines will surely improve beyond recognition, but they will no longer be under priced as they were during the 1980s.
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