The hidden European wine region for food-lovers to visit now

“According to the Hungarian system, Tokaj is a city.” So says local guide Márti Szegedi. We’re standing at the end of Tokaj’s modest, meandering main street, flanked by a charming mix of buildings, some painted in gentle pastels with wooden doors and shutters. I spot a tiny chocolate shop, a vending machine selling milk and several storefronts stacked with plastic bottles of local wine. It’s a sunny Monday afternoon, and there’s barely a soul to be seen. With a twinkle in her eye, Tokaj-born Márti adds, “But everyone knows it’s a village.”

Occupying a historically strategic spot where the Tisza and Bodrog rivers meet, the ‘city’ gives its name to the surrounding Tokaj-Hegyalja region. This UNESCO World Heritage-listed Historic Cultural Landscape — confusingly also referred to simply as Tokaj — is home to a winemaking tradition dating back more than a millennium. Stretching between the densely forested Zemplén Mountains and fertile lowlands of the Great Hungarian Plain, the region has endured centuries of turbulent history. As Márti leads me past historic cellar entrances and a meticulously reconstructed former synagogue, she describes how in the past 150 years alone, Tokaj’s vineyards were devastated by the phylloxera epidemic, its winemaking communities destroyed by the two world wars and its ancient viticultural traditions dismantled by communist collectivisation.

In the decades since the end of communist rule in Hungary in 1989, the region has rediscovered its identity. Winemakers today draw on its rich multicultural heritage, shaped by diverse ethnic and religious communities from across Central and Eastern Europe, while embracing modern techniques. Tokaj’s low hills and valleys are patchworked with vineyards and fields of sunflowers, wheat and corn, punctuated with churches, castle ruins and historic stately homes. And beneath this rural landscape, carved deep into the volcanic rock, labyrinths of dark, cold, centuries-old cellars hold some of the world’s sweetest — and most expensive — wines.

Ancient cellars & noble rot

On the edge of the tiny village of Hercegkút, 20 miles north of Tokaj, the facades of what look like triangular stone Hobbit houses protrude from the grassy lower slope of Gombos Hill. There are at least 80 of them, lined up in four tiered rows rising neatly up the hillside. Each turf-covered structure, complete with a wooden door, is a cellar entrance leading into a labyrinth of passages.

Midway along the top row of cellar entrances, I meet the bright and cheerful Ildikó Götz outside a spotless doorway emblazoned with her surname. Her winemaking family owns some of Hercegkút’s oldest cellars, hand-dug into the volcanic rock by Swabian settlers in 1748. I follow Ildikó’s sparkly platform trainers down a dark, sloping passageway lined with barrels made from Zemplén oak. The air is cool, the ceiling glistens from the high humidity and huge swathes of charcoal-grey fluff cover the walls. This thick, velvety mould is of great importance to Tokaj. “It feeds off the alcohol fumes and helps to control the humidity,” Ildikó says. “It’s the sign of a healthy cellar.”

The passage opens into a wide cellar, where Ildikó hands me a blanket — the cellar maintains a constant 10C — and opens a bottle of pale yellow Furmint wine. It’s dry and crisp with a refreshing minerality, quite the opposite of what I expected in a region famed for sweet wines. Tokaj has Protected Designation of Origin status, and only six grapes are permitted to be cultivated for its wine. Furmint is the most widely planted, followed by Hárslevelű and yellow Muscat. “It’s possible to plant others,” elaborates Ildikó, “but they can’t be labelled as Tokaji wines.”

The region’s most celebrated wine is Aszú, a sweet wine made with grapes that have been attacked by noble rot. Tokaj’s misty mornings and dry, sunny afternoons create the ideal conditions for the beneficial fungus, which shrivels the grapes, concentrating their sugars and flavours. So-called Aszú berries are harvested painstakingly by hand, then macerated in must or base wine from the same vintage. After pressing and fermentation, the intensely aromatic wine is aged in oak barrels for at least 18 months — although Aszú can be kept for decades. Often listed on menus next to fortified wines, its natural sweetness lends Aszú to accompany desserts but as with French Sauternes, its sugars pair deliciously with the likes of rich roasted meats, pâté, game and chestnuts.

I learn more while sampling local specialities at the château-style Gróf Degenfeld Wine Estate in Tarcal village, surrounded by organic vineyards. In a dining room dressed in theatrical red and gold curtains, local waiter and sommelier Erik Somogyi pours a rich, paprika-tinted soup into my bowl, around an island of tender venison and root vegetables capped with sour cream. The meat comes from the Zemplén Mountains, whose thick forests supply Tokaj’s kitchens with everything from chanterelles, porcini and truffles to mouflon (wild sheep), pheasant and quail.

Since arriving with Ottoman traders in the 1600s, paprika has loomed large in Hungarian cooking. And the venison is followed by lecsó, a traditional stew of red and yellow peppers with onions and tomatoes flavoured with the powdered red pepper spice, then served with sliced white bread. The dish, which is smooth and smoky, comes with mashed potatoes, a crunchy breaded ball of liver sausage and fried mangalitsa pork tenderloin. The pork comes from a robust, curly-haired pig breed native to Hungary that’s prized for its fatty flavoursome meat.

Tattoos peeking out from under his shirt sleeves, Erik fills my wine glass with syrupy golden Tokaji Aszú. This was the stuff drunk in baroque-era royal courts, favoured by the likes of Louis XIV at Versailles. Aszú’s sweetness is measured in puttonyos, named after the traditional wooden baskets once used for collecting the precious grapes. The higher the number, the sweeter, more intensely coloured and expensive the wine — this one’s the maximum six. It’s gloriously fragrant and bursting with complex flavours; there are notes of dried apples and apricots. The wine’s sweetness is balanced by its high acidity, but mostly it feels, in the best possible way, like my mouth has been coated in honey.

The following afternoon, I drive through an open expanse of vineyards and fields to the tranquil village of Monok, hidden in a valley between the Zemplén Mountains, stopping for a hearty lunch at 19th-century winehouse Sárga Borház en route. A jókai bean soup, chock full of pork, smoked ham and sausage, once again has a lively paprika kick, while a neat pile of knobbly potato noodles, made creamy with sheep’s cheese, is crowned with soft, salty cubes of translucent pork fat.

Not yet defeated by food, I head out onto a peaceful, rustic lane in Monok, where I’m greeted by Réka Nagy-Nádházi outside the baking workshop that she and her husband Támas Nagy built opposite their terracotta-coloured home. Réka’s been supplying local shops and cafes with her homemade cakes for a decade, her baking inspired by old Hungarian recipes, local ingredients and traditions. “She conjures ideas in her head, and bakes with her heart,” says Támas admiringly, his spectacles balanced on his head. Réka’s ever-expanding range includes her interpretation of flódni, a traditional layered Jewish cake made with apples, walnuts, poppy seeds and plum jam; an indulgent adaptation of mákos guba, a classic Hungarian poppy-seed bread pudding; and her inventive mini cream cakes made with rosehip flour and Furmint-based Aszú.

Sitting at a lace-covered table surrounded by gently humming, cake-stocked fridges, I tuck into one of Réka’s favourite bakes, rákóczi túrós. Its crumbly crust is spread with apricot jam, covered with a tangy curd cheese filling flavoured with vanilla and lemon zest, and topped with meringue and another dollop of jam. “It’s very Hungarian to have layers,” Támas says. It’s surprisingly light; the meringue crispy on top and fluffy underneath, the filling and jam not too sweet. Réka mostly uses homegrown fruit for her preserves — Monok’s gardens produce a bounty of apples, blackberries, loquats and plums — and adds very little sugar. “I like the original apricot flavour,” she says, “not a sweet taste.”

Before I depart, I manage to squeeze in a square of Réka’s popular apple pie, its deep cinnamon, apple and raisin filling sandwiched between two layers of the lightest, crumbliest of pastries. Her secret ingredient? Lard from mangalitsa pigs.

A culinary renaissance

“The mangalitsa pig is one of Hungary’s national treasures,” Zsóka Fekete tells me with a dazzling smile. The award-winning mangalitsa breeder positions a piece of coppa on a wooden board, the garnet-coloured dry-cured meat heavily marbled with creamy-white fat. We’re at the 19th-century thatched house her mother lovingly restored and turned into a folk museum in her hometown of Hajdúböszörmény, 25 miles south of Tokaj. Zsóka’s invited me here to talk about her woolly coated pigs.

Mangalitsas were developed in Hungary, crossbred from Serbian and Hungarian pigs and wild boar by an archduke during the Austro-Hungarian Empire. “For generations,” explains Zsóka, “families relied on their fat and meat as a key source of energy and nutrition, especially during the long harsh winters.” The pigs’ numbers fell to near extinction under communist rule, but today, the stout, curly-haired swines are having a renaissance, their fatty meat prized all over the globe — and, of course, at home. “Its richness pairs beautifully with the famous wines of the region,” says Zsóka, “particularly Tokaji Aszú.”

Zsóka’s 300-or-so pigs are raised slowly, in spacious indoor-outdoor pens, fed on organic legumes, grains and seeds producing a richly flavoured meat high in healthy unsaturated fats. She sells her artisanal products, including beechwood-smoked bacon and creamy lard, at Lehel Market Hall in Budapest or ordered for collection here in Hajdúböszörmény. Zsóka offers me a slice of semi-dried sausage seasoned with locally produced garlic and paprika: it’s succulent, smoky and bacony, with a subtly fiery finish. Next, I slip a paper-thin sliver of snow-white, salt-cured back fat onto my tongue and close my eyes: the buttery delicacy disintegrates instantly, leaving a deeply savoury, salty taste in its place.

My final stop is Sauska, a winery and restaurant on Padi Hill’s vine-covered slopes. The award-winning building was designed to blend into Tokaj’s protected landscape, but from afar, there’s no denying that the overlapping limestone-clad saucers look like they’ve landed from outer space.

I’m welcomed by Andrea Sauska, blue eyes smiling, ears jewelled with dainty silver bunches of grapes. She and her husband Christian started their family winery in 2003, making Aszú in Tokaj city. Today, they operate two sites: one in Christian’s native Villány, a southwest Hungarian wine region renowned for its bold reds, and this new Rátka location, where the spotlight’s on dry and sparkling whites.

Andrea leads me to their restaurant, Padi, a stylish, contemporary space with expansive views of Tokaj’s undulating scenery, and presents me with a thin-stemmed glass of sparkling wine — a crisp blend of Furmint, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir with a fine stream of bubbles rising to its surface. “Sparkling is a new development in Tokaj,” she says. “The old Tokaj story is rooted in sweet wines, but its diverse volcanic character should be included in sparkling and dry wines, too.”

Our table is laden with dark pink slices of 36-month-aged mangalitsa ham and cow’s milk cheeses from the village of Mád (a four-minute drive away) served with a spiced-plum chutney and toasted walnut bread. In the open kitchen, head chef Máté Gerák tweezes tiny coriander leaves onto a ponzu-marinated, wood-grilled kohlrabi cuboid sprinkled with wisps of red chilli and sesame seeds. His precise, wine-inspired Hungarian cooking contrasts sharply with most of the dishes I’ve tried on this trip, and it’s perfectly aligned with Andrea’s fresh approach to celebrating Tokaj’s riches.

I finish my meal with another apple pie, this time a compact parcel of buttery pastry filled with apple and quince grown on the hill opposite, and topped with a delicate assembly of fine, cut-out biscuits resting on a pillow of Aszú sabayon. “We’re constantly working on the question of how to serve Aszú,” Andrea admits. The sweet wine is traditionally paired with duck or goose liver. The one lacing my sabayon is the same as the bright golden Aszú puttonyos in my glass, an elegant blend of Furmint, Hárslevelű and yellow Muscat. Its incorporation in such a contemporary dessert feels like a fitting reflection of contemporary Tokaj cuisine, honouring tradition while embracing innovation. I look out of the window at the volcanic landscape and pick up my glass of Aszú. This is a pretty perfect way to serve it, I think to myself, and raise the glass to the hills.