Tokaji in eastern Hungary is one of the wine world’s most renowned regions, most famous for its sweet wines made from Botrytis-affected grapes. Disznókö is a very high quality Tokaji producer and part of the AXA Millésimes group, that makes a range of excellent sweet wines. In common with many Tokaji estates, there has been a move into dry table wines too (Disznókö winemaker, László Mészáros, says that today 70% of all Tokaji is dry wine).
The two great grapes of Tokaji are Furmint and Hárslevelú. Both of the wines tasted here are Furmint based – 100% in the case of the Dry Furmint, while the ‘Inspiration’ blends 15% of Hárslevelú.
The Dry Furmint is made entirely in stainless steel tanks, different vineyard lots blended after fermentation, and aged on fine lees for four months. The fruit for Inspiration is mostly older vines, the Furmint whole bunch pressed, the Hárslevelű destemmed. Each was vinified separately with both selected and natural yeasts, fermented and given around five years maturation in barrels of 225 and 500-litres, mostly two- to five years old, with 10% new Hungarian oak from Zemplén.