Check out this short but really interesting video about how Tokaji wines are made.
Tokaji wines are quite popular worldwide among wine experts and even among those who just like to drink a glass of sweet wine occasionally. Tourists like buying a bottle of Tokaji for souvenir, and it is also a nice gift among Hungarians.
But what is the secret of these worldwide famous wines? In the following video, winemaker István Szepsy credits the layers of volcanic rock under the furmint grape vines for the wine’s balanced, minerally mouthfeel. And he would know. Szepsy’s family has been making sweet wines in the Tokaji region for 500 years.
The process for creating Tokaji wine remains pretty much unchanged since then. You take furmint grapes, allow the botrytis fungus (aka “noble rot”) to surround the clusters, pick each berry one-by-one, ferment the gently-pressed juice in oak barrels and … voila: The wine of kings!
The video was made by Great Big Story, in collaboration with the Hungarian Tourism Agency. Enjoy!