Tokaj: History

The first known occurrence of the name, in the form ‘Tokay’, is in a 13th-century genealogy and history entitled Gesta Hungarorum. The Gesta, and many sources after it, refer to the emblematic hill of the region not as Tokaj but as Tarcal, today the name of a village at the western foot of the hill. Remarkably, Tarcal was also the name of the hill in Syrmia far to the south, today known as Fruska Gora in serbia, which yielded the most famous wine of medieval Hungary. Records enumerating the administrative units have existed since 1641, but these early sources are rife with gaps and contradictions. Hungarian wine legislation of the time lists 27 communities with a right to label their wines as Tokaj. The vineyards around most of these communities were first classified in the 18th century, in a manner that was rigorous at the time but is not entirely useful today. By the 18th century, this extraordinary wine had been introduced to the French court (see hungary, history), and was subsequently introduced to the Russian imperial court by the Habsburgs. Only constantia from the Cape of Good Hope, and to a lesser extent Moldavian cotnari, rivalled the reputation of this wine, generally known outside Hungary as ‘the wine of kings and king of wines’ during this period of sweet-wine worship, with Tokaji Esszencia regarded as an all-purpose restorative.