Hungarian wine on top 10 New York Times list

News of the Hungarian wines has reached overseas – the 2017 Royal Tokaji 5 Puttonyos Aszú finally achieved world fame.

One of the most-read American newspapers has recently published a special segment featuring wines. The Tokaji Aszú was among the top ten most recommended editions.

The perfect gift

A recent article in the New York Times, which recommends wines for Valentine’s Day, gave recognition to one of Hungary’s biggest wine brands, the Tokaji Aszú. The author writes about sweet wines explicitly, exclaiming that they, though rather tricky, can be the cherry on top of the cake at the right moment. He details the exact nature of the perfect wine pairings, and how to crown the moment with some sweet wine. The good sweet wine is balanced, bringing a lively taste and a surprising versatility to the table.

Pál Rókusfalvy, the Government Commissioner Responsible for National Wine Marketing, has called attention to the article on his social media page, Blikk writes. His post read that “even the New York Times says that with some out-of-the-box thinking, our 2017 Royal Tokaji 5 Puttonyos Aszú can be a good alternative to the usual and perhaps a bit boring sweets, jewellery and flowers Holy Trinity”.

The main ingredient is ‘risk’

The New York Times article also talks of the incomprehensible dwindling of sweet wines in the market. Though the author is confounded by the decline, they do add some possible reasons for it. For a good sweet wine, the main ingredient is risk. For a sweet wine to be properly good, the most important objective is that the botrytis cinerea, the noble rot responsible for complexity and sweetness, settles on the grapes at the exact right time.

However, botrytis depends on certain weather conditions that are impossible to control and can easily lead to a disastrous outcome, going so far as to even ruin the harvest. The sweet wine industry is a risky business and that’s why they mostly fall into the expensive category. Another reason might be the intensive labour needed for the harvest, which adds to the price as well.

The unbeatable Tokaji Aszú

The author highlights the scarcity of sweet wines in the market, namely the New York stores, by explaining his process for choosing the recommended wines. He writes that even picking out ten that were worth a mention has caused him some headache. Luckily for us, in the end, he did manage to find ten excellent picks to recommend. He then delves into the list of wines, giving each one a praising paragraph and an explanation.

For the Royal Tokaji 5 Puttonyos Aszú Red Label 2017, he wrote: “Hungarian Tokaji aszú wines are legendary, yet more difficult to find than a few years ago and much less known than two centuries ago when they were renowned in European capitals. This Royal Tokaji bottle is complex, fruity, and spicy, but with fresh, rich sweetness thanks to botrytis. A bottle is available for USD 60, or HUF 20,000.”

This could also interest you:

• Read about new developments in the alcohol industry HERE.
• Read about the other well- known alcohol in Hungary HERE.