Ottoman wine bequest still appreciated in Hungary

 Tokaj Letter:There are few things for which Hungarians thank their 16th century Ottoman invaders. A necessarily shortlist might include the steam baths of Budapest, the superb former mosque in the southern city of Pecs, and the crescent-shaped kifli pastry, which sits so well beside a cup of the coffee that the vanquished Turks abandoned in bean form outside nearby Vienna in 1683.

For many Hungarians, however, the sweetest reminder of 150 years of Ottoman rule may be an unsightly fungus called botrytis cinerea.

This fungus attacks grapes and, when dry weather follows damp, can take a form with the more palatable name of "noble rot", which helps dry out the fruit, intensifying its taste, colour and sweetness, and is an indispensable element in the making of Hungary's most famous wine: Tokaji.

Legends abound as to how shrivelled, discoloured grapes were first used in wine-making, but one holds that it resulted from an Ottoman attack on the town of Tokaj in north-eastern Hungary, which forced farmers to flee when they should have been harvesting the vines.

When danger finally passed and they ventured back out into the rolling hills around the town, they found their grapes wracked by botrytis, and apparently ruined.

With nothing else to work with, however, the farmers used the grapes to make wine, and were astonished by its extraordinary sweetness - and so the first late-harvest dessert wine was born.

Wine had already been produced in the region for at least 400 years, and some historians say the Romans brought vines to what is now Hungary when they invaded at around the time of Christ.But the revelation that was noble rot gave Hungary a prominent place in Europe's wine-growing firmament, and made Tokaji a tipple of choice for the continent's rulers and aristocracy.

From the hills at the confluence of the Tisza and Bodrog rivers, close to Hungary's current border with Ukraine and Slovakia, Tokaji wine travelled to the courts of admiring kings and tsars.

Modern-day enthusiasts insist that Russia's Peter the Great adored Tokaji, that Frederick the Great of Prussia sipped it with Voltaire in Berlin, and that it could unite in appreciation such diverse characters as Oliver Cromwell and Pope Benedict XIV, who reportedly exclaimed upon receiving a gift of Tokaji from Austrian empress Maria Theresa: "Blessed be the land that made you; blessed be the woman that sent you; blessed am I that drink you."

The likes of Beethoven, Liszt and Goethe were also admirers of Tokaji, but it is Louis XV's words when serving it to his mistress, Madame de Pompadour, that are best remembered today: "This is the wine of kings, and the king of wines."

For Hungarians, Tokaji is also inextricably linked with Ferenc Rakoczi II, an aristocrat whose powerful family owned a swathe of vineyards in the area and used the proceeds from wine sales to fund resistance to Hungary's Ottoman and then Habsburg rulers.

The Rakoczi vineyards passed into Habsburg hands in 1715, after the uprising led by Ferenc finally foundered, and the family cellars are still in operation today, along with scores of others that meander for up to 20 miles through the region's volcanic rock, some of which are 600 years old.

The volcanic soil is credited with helping Tokaj's vineyards flourish, along with the moisture from the nearby rivers, the protection afforded by the surrounding hills, and a combination of cold winters, cool, dry springs, hot summers and autumns in which rain is followed by late, warm sun.

The Habsburgs were fully appreciative of Hungary's fine wines, and created a defined and distinct wine-producing region in Tokaj in 1757 - the world's first system of appellation.

The basic methods of Tokaji production and classification are unchanged for centuries, with the late-harvested grapes called "aszu" still being collected in a wooden tub called a "puttony", and the sweetness of the wines being ranked according to "puttonyos" - or how many tubs of grapes are added to the must before fermentation.

The more puttonyos marked on the label - from three to six - the sweeter, richer and probably more expensive the bottle of Tokaji Aszu wine.

Less sweet white wines are also made in the region from grapes harvested earlier in the year.