Tokay wine

“ Another variety of Tokay is the so-called máslás. The term is applied to different varieties of wines according to the district, but in the neighbourhood of Tokay it generally refers to wines obtained by treating szamorod or Ausbruch residues with dry wine. In the neighbourhood of Ménes sweet red wines produced by the Ausbruch system are also termed máslás. Hungary produces a variety of other wines both strong, such as those of central Hungary, and relatively light, such as those of Croatia and Transylvania. ”

“ It has been well remarked that "the weather seems to have no control over itself in Hungary."
The vine-grower's troubles do not end when the vintage is successfully over. Tokay is a troublesome wine in respect to fermentation; it requires three years before it can travel, and even when these critical years are over, the wine will sometimes get [Pg 366] "sick" in the spring—at the identical time when the sap rises in the living plant. ”

“ It must not be forgotten that Tokay in unstinted measure has a tendency to make a man reflect in the first instance what a really fine fellow he is. It is doubtless one of the first qualities of good wine to enhance in the man who drinks it the estimation of his own vintage. Had the page, who as a fact knew nothing, or the barber, or the valet, breathed the name of Father Lamormain, of a surety Nigel would have regarded the idea as humorous, and even at that rather wanting in point. ”

“ Amongst other places I have been to Tokay, where I drank some of the wine. I am endeavouring to bring two or three bottles to England, for I thought of my mother and yourself and Hen., and I have got a little wooden case made; it is very sweet and of a pale straw colour; whether I shall be able to manage it I do not know; however, I shall make the attempt. At Tokay the wine is only two shillings the bottle, and I have a great desire that you should taste some of it. I sincerely hope that we shall soon all meet together in health and peace. ”

“ He seems for his own part to have been, as far as nature permitted him, an accommodating toper, indulging, in addition to Champagne, in Tokay, Portugal, Florence, Burgundy, Hermitage, ‘Irish wine,’ i.e. Claret, ‘right French wine,’ Congreve’s ‘nasty white wine’ that gave him the heartburn, and Sir William Read’s ‘admirable punch.’ He acknowledges that the more fashionable beverages of the day were not to his taste. ‘I love,’ writes he, ‘white Portugal wine better than Claret, Champaign, or Burgundy. ”

“ It is a well-known fact that the wine-drinker who abstains for a long period from his favorite beverage, then yields again to the temptation, becomes a more inveterate drunkard than before he resisted the fascinations of the cup. The haidemaken drank only Tokay; they made a point of selecting from the cellars of the prelates, and magnates whom they plundered, only the best vintages. ”

“ In reality it is not until we have passed the ornate modern Gothic château of Boursault, erected in her declining years by the wealthy Veuve Clicquot, by far the shrewdest manipulator of the sparkling products of Ay and Bouzy of her day, and the many towers and turrets of which, rising above umbrageous trees, crown the loftiest height within eyeshot of Epernay, that we find ourselves within that charmed circle of vineyards whence champagne—the wine, not merely of princes, as it has been somewhat obsequiously termed, but essentially the vin de société—is derived. ”

“ Carts piled up with baskets, or crowded with peasants from a distance on their way to the vineyards, jostle the low railway-trucks laden with brand-new casks, and the somewhat rickety cabriolets of the agents of the big Champagne houses, who are reduced to clinch their final bargain for a hundred or more pièces of the peerless wine of Ay or Bouzy, Verzy or Verzenay, beside the reeking wine-press. ”

“ And if what you buy for port or sherry be not absolutely a decoction, but only inferior wine made up, then the water equally acts as a detective. For the dilution has the effect of separating, so to speak, the respective tastes of the component parts—brings them out, sir; and you get each distinct. You get, on the one hand, the taste of the bad brandy, harsh, raw, and empyreumatic: and you get, on the other hand, the taste of the poor, paltry wine, wretched stuff, the true vinho ordinario flavour, that makes you think at once of some dirty roadside Portuguese posada, swarming with fleas. ”

“ The Tonnerre vineyards are of high antiquity, and for sparkling wines the produce of the black and white pineau and the white morillon varieties of grape is had recourse to. The vintaging is accomplished with great care, and only the juice which flows from the first pressure is employed. This is run off immediately into casks which are hermetically closed when the fermentation has subsided. The after-treatment of the wine is the same as in the Champagne. ”

“ The northern part of the range is also called Sóvar Mountains. These mountains, which have in the northern part an altitude of 2700 ft., slope down towards the south-east near Tokaj in a hilly plateau of about 1500 ft. altitude, where the vineyard region is situated. This vineyard region covers an area of about 135 sq. m., and belongs to 21 adjoining communities. The soil is of volcanic origin (trachyte) . The principal places where the wine is produced are Tarczal, Tálya, Mád, Liszka, Tokaj, Tolcsva, Saróspatak, Keresztur, and Zsadaný. The yearly production averages 5,000,000 gallons. ”

“ Every body knows that no product of the arts varies so much as wine; that different countries, and sometimes the different provinces of the same country, produce different wines. These differences, no doubt, must be attributed chiefly to the climate in which the vineyard is situated—to its culture—the quantity of sugar contained in the [Pg 90] grape juice—the manufacture of the wine; or the mode of suffering its fermentation to be accomplished. If the grapes be gathered unripe, the wine abounds with acid; but if the fruit be gathered ripe, the wine will be rich. ”

“ In very bad years, when their wines become vinegar, they are sold for six florins the piece, and made into brandy. They yield one-tenth brandy.
White Champagne is deemed good in proportion as it is silky and still. Many circumstances derange the scale of wines. The proprietor of the best vineyard, in the best year, having bad weather come upon him while he is gathering his grapes, makes a bad wine, while his neighbor, holding a more indifferent vineyard, which happens to be ingathering while the weather is good, makes a better. The M. de Casotte at Pierrij formerly was the first house. ”

“ We also possess the finest sand, and the best adapted for the manufacture of all kinds of glass, in the world; and when it is known that the exports of our wines must, to yield their due value, be put in bottles for the spirit, necessarily, to prevent their fermentation in wood—for export destroys the peculiar flavour of the genuine grape wine of the colony—it cannot be doubted that it is the interest of the vine-growers to forward the establishment of glass manufactories, so essential to the just appreciation of their wine in Europe ”

“ The cellar, too, should be neither over dark nor light, scrupulously clean, and sufficiently well ventilated for the air to be continuously pure. It is requisite that the bottles should rest on their sides to prevent the corks shrinking, and thus allowing both the carbonic acid and the wine itself to escape. For laying down champagne or any kind of sparkling wine an iron wine-bin is by far the best. ”

“ On our left hand is Mailly, the vineyards of which join those of Verzenay, and yield a wine noted for finesse and bouquet. From the wooded knolls hereabouts a view is gained of the broad plains of the Champagne, dotted with white villages and scattered homesteads among the poplars and the limes, the winding Vesle glittering in the sunlight, and the dark towers of Notre Dame de Reims, with all their rich Gothic fretwork, rising majestically above the distant city. ”

“ British wines have earned their bad name partly through the careless manner in which they are usually prepared, unclean bottles, corks, casks, and vats being commonly used; and partly through the absurdly short space of time allowed to elapse between making and drinking. No wine is fit to drink under two years from the time of its manufacture, and most wines should be kept in bottle much longer than is customary. ”

“ Wherever civilisation penetrates, Champagne sooner or later is sure to follow; and if Queen Victoria’s morning drum beats round the world, its beat is certain to be echoed before the day is over by the popping of Champagne corks. Nowadays the exhilarating wine graces not merely princely but middle-class dinner-tables, and is the needful adjunct at every petit souper, as well as the stimulant to the wildest revels in all the gayer capitals of the world. ”

“ That vin mousseux was not made during the vintage; that there was no special soil for it; that the Anjou wines were suitable, since poor wine froths as well as the most excellent, frothing being a property of thin poor wine. That to make wine froth, it was necessary to draw it off as clear as could be done from the lees, if it had not been already racked; to bottle it on a fine clear day in January or February, or in March at the latest; three or four months afterwards the wine will be found effervescent, especially if it has some tartness and a little strength. ”

“ The difference in price between the first and inferior wines is very great. Those of the best vineyards sell generally the first year at from 2000 to 3000 francs the tonneau, and rise to 5000 or 6000, and even higher, in a very favourable vintage. On the contrary, the vins communs fetch only from 100 to 120 francs, and seldom rise to more than 200 or 300.
“The wine of first quality, at its point of maturity, ought to have a beautiful colour, much firmness, a very agreeable bouquet, and a flavour which embalms the mouth, strength without intoxicating, and body without harshness. ”

“ To walk amid these upright, branching casks of purple wine, which retain and diffuse a sunset glow, tasting each one with your eye, instead of counting the pipes on a London dock, what a privilege! For Nature’s vintage is not confined to the vine. Our poets have sung of wine, the product of a foreign plant which commonly they never saw, as if our own plants had no juice in them more than the singers. Indeed, this has been called by some the American Grape, and, though a native of America, its juices are used in some foreign countries to improve the color of the wine ”

“ In the Case of Dry Wines, whose sugar has all been transformed, the same attentions are to be bestowed as in the case of new red wines, and the rules laid down are referred to. (See Red Wine.)
Mellow White Wines, that is, those which retain a portion of their sweetness after the tumultuous fermentation, particularly if they do not carry 15 per cent. of alcohol, require the greatest amount of care in order to preserve their mellowness in aging; for if left to themselves they will again enter into fermentation, and become dry. ”

“ The vintage had not indeed as yet begun, but I saw the process performed on a small quantity of grapes, which had been ripened in a garden. Every vineyard proprietor, besides his stock-fruit, has some peculiar species of grape from which he makes the wine for his own use and that of his immediate friends: these grapes are very carefully picked and culled, and none but the soundest and best are thrown into the tub. The wine thus made is infinitely superior to the stock-wine for sale: when old, it is not inferior to Hock, and I believe is frequently sold as such by the foreign purchasers. ”

“ For good champagne does not rain down from the clouds, or gush out from the rocks, but is the result of incessant labour, patient skill, minute precaution, and careful observation. In the first place, the soil imparts to the natural wine a special quality which it has been found impossible to imitate in any other quarter of the globe. To the wine of Ay it lends a flavour of peaches, and to that of Avenay the savour of strawberries; the vintage of Hautvillers, though fallen from its former high estate, is yet marked by an unmistakably nutty taste ”

“ It was not till the close of the eighteenth century that any attempt was openly made to improve sparkling Champagne by the addition of sugar. [206] Science then came forward to prove that such an [Pg 67] addition was not contrary to the nature of wine, and that fermentation converted the saccharine particles of the must into alcohol, and increased the vinosity. ”

“ IN selecting a sparkling wine, one fact should be borne in mind—that just as, according to Sam Weller, it is the seasoning which makes the pie mutton, beef, or veal, so it is the liqueur which renders the wine dry or sweet, light or strong. A really palatable dry Champagne, emitting the fragrant bouquet which distinguishes all wines of fine quality, free from added spirit, is obliged to be made of the very best vin brut, to which necessarily an exceedingly small percentage of liqueur will be added. ”

“ At these vendangeoirs no less than 5,450 pièces of fine white wine, sufficient for 1,360,000 bottles of champagne, are annually made—that is, 1,200 pièces at Ay, 1,100 at Cramant and Saran, 800 at Verzy and Verzenay, and smaller quantities at the remaining establishments. All these establishments have their celliers and their cellars, together with cottages for the accommodation of the numerous vinedressers in the employment of the firm. ”