The Merry Drinker

A puttonyio is a Hungarian hod.  Puttonyios means not “hods” but “hodded”.  So a 5 Puttonyios Aszu is a five-hodded Aszu.  I trust that makes everything clear.  It doesn’t?   Let me try again.  Aszu (pronounced rather like a sneeze) is Hungarian for “dried out” or “shrivelled.”  The word refers to grapes affected by botrytis, the “noble rot” that produces the world’s finest sweet wines.  A Tokaji Aszu is therefore a sweet Tokaji made from noble rot grapes, as opposed to a dry Tokaji (they do exist) or a sweet Tokaji made by some other method (they exist too, apparently).

Tokaji itself is often compared to other “noble rot” wines like Sauternes, Barsac and the German Trockenbeerenauslese.  I understand the comparison, but I think it unfair.  For one thing, Tokaji has been around in its present form much longer than any of those other wines - it was one of the first wines in Europe to be classified, back in the sixteenth century.  For another, Tokaji has a different appearance and flavour, resulting from a very different method of production, in which the Aszu grapes are macerated in another wine of the same vintage.  Hence those hods.  Traditionally, the number of puttonyios corresponded to the number of hodfuls of noble rot grapes that the winemaker chucked into the base wine.  The more hodfuls, the richer the resulting Tokaji.

I gather they don’t use hods any more, but they have kept the term puttonyios to indicate the level of Aszu.  One to four puttonyios are really not enough.  Five are fair value.  Six are outstanding, but will cost you serious money.

This week’s example is a 5 Puttonyios Aszu from the respected firm of Disznoko.  It is a shocking orange colour, with a nose of honey and vanilla and a rich array of flavours ranging from melon to candied orange.  It is sweeter than Sauternes, but its acidity ensures that it is in no way cloying.  If you are partial to sweet wines, I strongly recommend it.  $55 in the US, £30 in the UK.