Hello everybody and a warm welcome here to the Wine With Jimmy channel. I'm your host Jimmy Smith and this is a wine educational channel which is designed to help those of you really that just want to learn a bit more about the wonderful world of wine but moreover for those of you really getting into your books and studying the world of wine. possibly for the impending examinations hanging over you like the sword of Damocles.
Now, what we design here are lots of presentations to help you understand a topic, and we put these very important written questions in that I walk you through to help you understand to pass your examinations. As always, if you have any comments, any concerns, or any questions, please pop them in the comments section below this video. Make sure you click like.
and subscribe and you may also want to use the social media that you see at the bottom of every slide. So Tokaj. So this is it for the level three series. This is Hungary and all it focuses on for the Hungarian section is Tokaj and Tokaj is split into four parts. Parts one and two will be available as free content.
Parts three and four which includes the very important short written question. part which I walk you through, those ones will only be available on my e-learning portal. That's over at www.winewithjimmy.com. Okay, let's rock and roll looking at really the climate, discussing noble rot, and then the key grape varieties that we find within Tokaj. First of all, where do we find Tokaj?
So here is a map of Hungary. Now, the level three, you really don't need to know much about Hungary, only about Tokaj. Tokaj is located in the northeast of the country. And that really is right up here on volcanic, mainly volcanic soils. Very important in this area.
We're going to go through the climate and I'm going to go through what gives it quite an unusual microclimate. to then produce the very specific range of wines that we find within Tokaj. So here you are on your climate slide.
So Tokaj's climate is a moderate continental climate, so we are landlocked here, we are not influenced to any great extent by a sea or ocean, and we are moderate. Okay, so it's quite a balanced climate. The best vineyards are those that are located on hillside slopes, which tend to, of course, have southerly facing slopes and aspects, just like we find in the picture here of actually the southern section of Tokaj.
Now, rivers are important here in this area. So we have two. We have the Bodrog and the Tisza, as you'll see here. Now, the Tisza and the Bodrog are two rivers. Now, the...
I'll see if I can scribble this down actually so we have a bit of a better understanding because that map might not be the clearest for you to see but really the um the here we go the bodrog runs through all of this kind of this kind of way and then the tizzer comes down here and then continues that way so these are two very important rivers now why well first of all These rivers have many, many streams and tributaries that run into them. And all of this produces essential humidity and specifically that early morning humidity, which is necessary for the development of noble rot. Now, of course, with too much humidity and if that was to continue throughout the day consistently, that would lead to grey or black rot.
But in fact, what we have here is enough humidity in the morning and then we have the drier afternoons. And that humidity, once again, is supplied by the likes of the Bodrog and Tisza rivers, these two rivers just here. Now, what is Botryotis?
What is noble rot? So noble rot is the kind of more colloquial way that we discuss this. But the, in fact, proper name of the mold is Botryotis cinerea. so either or would be absolutely fine in your examinations so it is a mold or a fungus which is responsible for most fruit rots that we found find around the world it in fact has an i suppose an evil side a bad cop and then a good cop it has the benevolent side which is in fact The Botrytis cinerea, the benevolent one, is what creates our noble rot. So it is the mold or the fungus.
Now, under certain ideal microclimatic conditions, it will cause the noble rot. So the fungus will create the noble rot that we see on the picture just here. Now, this is often referred to as the infection phase. temperatures of around 20 to 25 degrees Celsius are often needed and that's for the afternoons and then a humidity really up towards 100 sort of 85 to 100 for a maximum 24 hours are considered desirable so once the infection has occurred with that high humidity that humidity then needs to drop and that will be when the warm afternoons come in because if it continues it will just create grey or black rot now that also then causes dehydration so it doesn't allow the mold to spread throughout the grape just on the skin of the grape but it stops that mold's growth and then it creates that dehydration as that mold sucks out the water from the grape it evaporates it so we need the right temperatures and we need the humidity in place for noble rot and that's what it says here so during the course of the development of the mold It penetrates the grape skin and dries out the berry.
OK, it doesn't split the berry. This is very important because it has been stopped and then it starts to evaporate that water out. This loss of water concentrates sugars, of course, acids and flavors in the berry, creating, of course, much more complex wines. And we need the proximity to something like a sea, a lake or in this instance, of course, river. is what we need.
Two rivers. Remember the Tizza and then the Bodrum. Okay.
The grape variety in play here is ferment. So there are three principal grape varieties, but about two-thirds of the production is ferment. Very important ferment.
They typically blend the three varieties, but ferment is the strongest one. So most widely planted makes the most concentrated high acid white wines with characteristics of apples when young, developing into nuts and honey as they age. And that's what we're showing you here.
So sort of the appley pear and can get a bit nutty and a bit honey with with some age behind it. And that's really when we're looking at the premium quality dry whites. But also it's very, very important. because it's a late ripening variety for noble rot and it's also very susceptible to noble rot.
So it has a late ripening, it's very susceptible, so it's ideal for noble rot and that of course means it will make these sweet azu wines. And the characteristics here of what you'll tend to find when it goes through that is what I've got on the right hand side, so things like mango, apricot, things like honey again maybe things like ginger as well with a bit of a lot of that sort of botrytis characteristic so that's the major grape variety ferment the other two varieties here so we have hache bleue which is on the left hand side and saga muscatoli which is muscat blanc petit grain so these hache bleue is basically the other third so ferment was about two thirds Hage Blue is about third and Saga Muscatalli is often around just around a percent, increasing a little bit, but not too important in top numbers. Both of these varieties contribute floral aromatics to the blend, whereas Ferment makes the backbone, has the concentration and has the acidity.
These add explosive aromatics. OK, so that brings me to the end of this first. part looking at climate, noble rot and key grape varieties.
Part two is looking at wine styles, just focusing on the dry wines. And then part three will be looking at the sweet wines and wine laws. And then we have that written question at the end. Please join me for part two. As always, if you have any comments, questions or concerns, please do get in touch and you can do so by commenting on this video below.
And if you do find yourself in London, then come and see me at one of my establishments for a class, a glass or a bottle. I've been Jimmy Smith. Ciao for now.
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