It
has been well remarked that "the weather seems to have no control over
itself in Hungary."
The vine-grower's troubles do not end when the vintage is successfully
over. Tokay is a troublesome wine in respect to fermentation; it
requires three years before it can travel, and even when these critical
years are over, the wine will sometimes get "sick" in the spring--at
the identical time when the sap rises in the living plant.
The unique quality of the Tokay is due to the soil, and perhaps to some
other conditions; but not to the peculiarity of the grape, for, as a
matter of fact, they grow a variety of sorts. The cultivation of the
vine appears to be of great antiquity in this part of the world. The
introduction of the plant is attributed to the inevitable Phoenician;
but, treading on more assured historic ground, we find that King Bela
IV., in the thirteenth century, caused new kinds of grapes to be
imported from Italy, and brought about an improvement generally in the
culture of the vine.
But to return to the question of the soil. The Tokay Eperies group of
hills is one of several well-defined groups of volcanic rocks that exist
in Hungary and Transylvania. In the Tokay district the formations are
partly eruptive, partly sedimentary, but nowhere older than the Tertiary
period, say the geologists. The Hegyalia (which means "mountain-slopes"
in the Magyar tongue) forms the southern spur of the extended volcanic
region, composed of trachyte and rhyolithe, beginning at Eperies and
terminating in the conical hill of Tokay, which protrudes itself so
singularly into the Alfoeld, or plain.
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