This is a great celebration of the fresh characters of young Tokay. Predominantly from 4 and 5 year old stock it has lovely flavours of butterscotch and apricot, fresh lifted spirit and that typical Tokay aroma of cold tea.
Viticultural Notes
Originally thought to come from the Hungarian Tokai variety (hence the name), it is now accepted that Tokay is made from the Muscadelle grape, a white variety. The long, warm Autumn days at Wahgunyah are virtually perfect for allowing the fruit to ripen to the high Baume levels and raisining so essential for the style.
Winemaking Notes
To make Tokay, the grapes are left on the vine to get really ripe; many of them shrivel up to raisins. The fruit is picked and crushed. This macerates for a few hours in order to allow any raisined berries to swell up. It is then pressed and the juice prevented from fermenting by the addition of high-strength neutral alcohol. The wine is allowed to settle for a few days before being racked off to barrel for maturation. The Rutherglen level of the classification is for the youngest wines with only a few years barrel age.
Food Matches
Delightful on its own as an after-dinner drink, it would also be wonderful served chilled with fruit based deserts. There is no need to save this wine for a special occasion as, unlike table wine, an opened bottle will last months before starting to deteriorate.
