In the town square of Tokaj a statue of Bacchus, the ancient Roman God of wine, balances precariously on a wine barrel, clutching a glass in one hand and grapes in the other. Welcome to one of the world’s most ancient wine regions.
The Tokaj region, which sits in the leafy foothills of the Zemplén Mountains in northeast Hungary, was declared wine country by royal decree in 1737 and inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2002. However, local people have been cultivating grapes here for thousands of years.
The region’s unique microclimate and mineral-rich soil is ideal for growing furmint and hárslevelű. For centuries, local winemakers have been alchemising these grapes into tokaji aszú – a legendary dessert wine that has found international acclaim. Indeed, French King Louis XIV once declared this heady elixir “wine of kings, king of wines”. Today, winemakers also produce a wide range of delicious dry whites from the same grapes.
Join us on a tour of the charming towns and villages of the Tokaj-Nyíregyháza Touristic Area to drink in the results of centuries of winemaking.
Tiszalök
Start your wine tour at Horgonyzó Kisvendéglő in Tiszalök. The restaurant is housed in a rustic shed hidden by trees, but that’s all part of its no-frills charm. Inside, you’ll find honest, homely Hungarian food made from high-quality local ingredients and cooked with “love, simplicity, and creativity”, as well as an expert selection of local wines.Five years ago, owners Andrea and Tamás Kecskés teamed up with chef Péter Pataky to organise small festivals celebrating Hungarian cuisine, street food, wine and beer, before launching a simple street food buffet. This quickly evolved into a small family restaurant. “We grew up in this part of Hungary and we are very lucky because our parents and grandparents were such good cooks and our childhoods were fully loaded with local ingredients, seasonality and tradition,” Executive Chef Péter says.
Péter cooks up a great mix of Hungarian dishes, street food and sourdough pizzas, and almost all the restaurant’s dishes – from duck leg and local parmentier potatoes to cottage cheese pasta and roasted vegetables – are cooked in a wood-fired oven outside. Its street food offering, which includes a catfish fillet burger, is also a hit with families.
Andrea and Péter have personal relationships with Tokaj winemakers and make regular visits to local vineyards and cellars. This is evident in the restaurant’s small but interesting selection of vintages. Start with the restaurant’s own sparkling wine from Tokaj, made from furmint, then follow it up with a dry white from Tokaj’s Gizella Pince vineyard or a Szepsy Estate tokaji furmint, another dry white with a rich flavour profile. “Being on the river, there are many fish dishes on our menu and Tokaj dry wines like furmint and hárslevelű go really well with fish,” Andrea notes.
With dessert, sample a small glass of the region’s world-famous aszú. The owners also highly recommend Demeter Zoltán 'Eszter' Tokaj Late Harvest, an earthy dessert wine, which comes from a one-man cellar in a historic Tokaj house.
If you’re lucky, you might even catch one of the restaurant’s popular monthly 5-6 course wine dinners.
Tokaj
Tokaj – the pretty town after which the wine region is named – sits at the confluence of the rivers Tisza and Bodrog, just a half-hour drive from Tiszalök. There’s certainly plenty for wine enthusiasts to enjoy in Tokaj, so it’s advisable to spend a few days here.In June, the Tokaj Wine Festival takes over the town and winemakers throw their doors open to the public and present their bottles for tasting. As autumn arrives, the town marks its Harvest Days – a celebration of bringing in the grapes – with folk costumes, processions and music.
In a canary yellow 17th-century home you’ll find the Tokaj Museum, which sits atop a 16th-century cellar with an aszú sorting table and winemaking tools. Move onto the World Heritage Museum for a virtual tour of exhibitions with a heavy emphasis on Tokaj wine; the museum also offers tours of Tokaj-Hegyalja.
Another fun activity is to rent a bike and tour the town’s winemakers and wineries, like Dobogó, Hímesudvar and Erzsébet – not forgetting the huge Rákóczi cellar on the main square. Then, board a boat for a local wine tasting on the tree-lined river.
The Michelin-recommended Minaro Hotel serves up an authentic wine country experience with a surprising Incan twist. This peaceful adults-only hotel is a haven for wine enthusiasts, combining luxury, history and fine vintages. Dana Janigová, the Minaro Hotel’s general manager, says: “Our close collaboration with local wineries allows us to offer guests a truly authentic experience. They can enjoy rare wines that are exclusive to this region and unavailable anywhere else.”
The hotel’s rooms are luxurious, with bold, Incan-inspired features. Think luminous bedspreads, gold feature walls and balconies with sweeping vineyard views. The Deluxe rooms have private saunas, meanwhile the wellness suite incorporates a salt chamber, an indoor adventure pool, massage services and a sauna with panoramic views.
At the hotel’s Tortuga restaurant, guests dine on a bistro-style à la carte menu, with eye-catching dishes drawing inspiration from both Hungarian and Incan cuisine. After dinner, head to the hotel’s Viracocha Bar to sample the famous tokaji aszú – “it embodies the essence of our wine region,” says Dana – or choose from a long list of bottles from Tokaj and other Hungarian wine regions such as Villány, Eger and Balaton. “We would like to show that Tokaj is not only about the aszú, but also about excellent dry white wines,” Dana says. “Wines made from Tokaj grapes are so unique that experienced tasters can identify them immediately, as distinctively as champagne or burgundy. This uniqueness comes from the special combination of soil composition and the microclimate.”
Hotel Minaro offers complete immersion in local wine culture with exclusive wine tours, tastings and courses, as well as unique hands-on experiences at its own Minaro vineyard. Indulge in a private breakfast in the vineyard or order a bottle of tokaji sparkling wine alongside your jacuzzi rental.
Bodrogkeresztúr
Thirteen minutes by car from Tokaj, the ancient village of Bodrogkeresztúr sits on the tree-lined banks of the River Bodrog, stretching up a hillside blanketed in vines. Bodrogkeresztúr, which was already settled in the Bronze age, is home to a large stork population, an 800-year-old church and several great artisan wineries.Visit the family-run Tokaj Nobilis Winery before heading to Füleky Manion to taste its ‘Fülöp The Phenomenon’ dry white, named after an injured stork the villagers kept warm in their homes for ten winters in a row. Be sure to try a glass of Bodrogkeresztúr’s famous Pezsgő – a Hungarian sparkling wine made using champagne techniques. The village is also home to the Tokaj wine vinegar factory and its museum.
Tarcal
In the village of Tarcal, just a ten-minute drive from Bodrogkeresztúr, a gargantuan white hilltop statue of Jesus watches over the village’s many wine bars.The Michelin-recommended Andrássy Kúria & Spa, home to Bobajka restaurant, is an undisputed highlight. The hotel’s deep connection with its wine country surroundings is evident: the reception doubles as a bar, you’re served a glass of furmint on arrival, and the foyer walls are lined with antique lithographs illustrating the natural character of Tokaj. Read books on wine philosophy while soaking in the pool and enjoy local Szerencs chocolate from your minibar. In autumn, the hotel serves locally harvested grapes.
The hotel’s rooms come with elegant, modern décor and were designed with comfort in mind. The spacious spa is outstanding, incorporating an otherworldly cave bath, a whirlpool, a sauna and both indoor and outdoor pools, as well as offering a wide variety of specialist treatments.
At Bobajka, you’ll receive warm, friendly, unpretentious service – “we don’t want people to feel like they are dining on the Titanic,” says Barnabás Kövesdi, the hotel’s General Manager. Helmed by Chef Bence Várkonyi, who grew up in a neighbouring village, Bobajka’s dishes combine modern cooking techniques with flavours deeply rooted in northeast Hungary.
“Chef Bence speaks the language of the region’s gastronomic character and draws inspiration from the cooking style of his family,” explains Barnabás.
Barnabás recommends the wild ragout – a homemade broad noodle called szélesmetélt served with boar, venison and forest mushrooms. Other favourite dishes from the menu include Zemplén mushroom paprikás with spätzle; a toasted nokedli (Hungarian dumplings) with a sour cream side; and, for fish-lovers, trout from the nearby town of Lillafüred.
And then, of course, there’s the wine. “The selection process is like setting up an orchestra,” Barnabás says. Wines are sourced from within a 45-minute radius, starting with a large variety of Tarcal wines, before moving to nearby vineyards in Mád, Tállya, Bodrogkisfalud and Bodrogkeresztúr. You’ll also discover Hungarian wines from further afield, as well as the odd bottle of red or rosé to ensure a well-rounded tasting experience.
The subtly oaky Balassa ‘Kacsa’ comes highly recommended with white meat, while the Patricius Profundum, Patricius Furmint and Patricius Aszú 6 Puttonyos capture the rustic grandeur of the area. Barnabás also recommends “exceptional wines” from the Sauska winery in Tokaj, and bottles from the Szepsy winery in Mád.
Andrássy Kúria can arrange a whole host of wine-related experiences for guests, from off-road tours to wine tasting, wine dinners and picnics.
Mád
En route to your next destination, make a stop in Mád, one of the region’s most famous villages. It’s just ten minutes from Tarcal by car. Here you’ll discover grand houses, a beautifully renovated synagogue and a winemaking tradition that stretches back centuries.The sought-after soils in the Mád basin – predominantly red clay, zeolite malota and quartz rhyolite – make for wines with a rich mineral character. Book a wine tasting and tour at Mád Wine, which works with vineyard smallholder families, to see local winemaking in action.
Notably, Mád is home to the Szepsy winery. The family has been innovating in winemaking since the 1600s and is credited with inventing the method behind the world-renowned tokaji aszú in the 17th-century.
Embark on the Holdvölgy Experience to see one of the longest and oldest cellar systems in the region (some sections date back to the 16th-century). Then visit the 250-year-old estate house that plays home to classic winery Pelle Pince. You can also rent a bike to tour the local vineyards, or taste handmade cheeses from local Master Cheesemaker Sándor Bodnár.
Encs
Continue north for 30 minutes to reach Encs – the final stop on your Hungarian wine country adventure. Here you’ll find Anyukám Mondta, an airy modern restaurant run by two brothers and their partners. Dine at this relaxed establishment for a sustainable, seasonal menu and an exciting, exclusive wine list. “We try to work with local producers for most of the ingredients, from mangalitsa pork and lamb to hundreds of kilos of fresh raspberries and elderflowers (we use these to make homemade syrup), apricots, honey and various vegetables,” says Chef-Owner Szabolcs Dudás.Szabolcs aims to keep rural traditions alive in his kitchen, baking homemade sourdough and pizza bread, stuffing sausages and cooking jams, while desserts are whipped up in the restaurant’s patisserie. The chef recommends the sour lungs of lamb – a stew made of lungs, tongues, hearts and Dijon mustard served with bread roll dumplings and tripe. “Sustainability in the countryside is not just an empty slogan. We are focused on innards, offal and cheaper, more underestimated ingredients,” says front of house manager Szilárd Dudás.
Tokaj wines are prominent on Anyukám Mondta’s drinks list. The restaurant has a close relationship with around 15 wineries in the region, and several of these produce exclusive wines for the restaurant. “We have a particularly good relationship with the Szepsy family, who are the best-known winemakers from Mád in the world,” says Szilárd.
Indeed, the Szepsy family makes the house’s dry and sweet wines (furmint and late harvest, respectively), while the Oremus and Nobilis wineries also produce wine exclusively for the restaurant. These wines sit alongside international vintages too.
Hero Image © Péter Pataky
