Visiting Tokaj in Slovakia: 8 things to see and a cellar for wine tasting

If you love Slovak wine, Tokaj is a stop you shouldn’t skip, and I’d give it more than one day. My advice: book accommodation that includes a wine tasting, and hire a bike for the local cycle routes. Make time for the wine cellars, the barrel-shaped lookout tower and a bowl of Tokaj onion soup.

Quick factsby Milan Bez Mapy

How many days

More than one; book accommodation that includes a wine tasting and bike hire

Where I did my tasting

The Tokaj & Co cellar in Malá Tŕňa, the largest in the Tokaj region and more than 2.5 km long

Before the tasting

Dress warmly; it’s about 8°C in the cellar and the tasting lasts just over an hour

Barrel-shaped lookout tower

12 metres tall and shaped like a wine barrel; I give the architect ten out of ten for the idea

What to eat

Tokaj onion soup, which is cooked with dry Tokaj samorodné

I wrote this article in 2019. Prices, opening hours and connections may have changed since then, so check them before you travel.

A visit to Tokaj should be on every Slovak wine lover’s list. The Tokaj region in eastern Slovakia is one of a kind: there’s nothing quite like it anywhere else in the world.

Visiting Tokaj, Slovakia’s smallest wine region

Why? Because it’s the smallest wine region in Slovakia (about 900 hectares), with very particular conditions for growing grapes. That’s why Tokaj wines are known all over the world. So what is there to see and do? I visited the Tokaj region, the village of Malá Tŕňa to be exact, as part of my travels around Slovakia with the Kraj grocery chain. On these trips I don’t go looking for sights but for our local producers.

You’ll find articles and videos from all these trips in the Krížom Krajom s Milanom Bez Mapy series. This one is about my visit to Tokaj.

Tip from Milan I’d recommend booking your accommodation as early as you can, because rooms in a good location at a fair price go first. Here you’ll find accommodation offers in the area valid today.

Tokaj in Slovakia: what to expect

Things to do in Slovak Tokaj and where to go wine tasting

1. Go wine tasting in one of the cellars. I tried the biggest, the Tokaj & Co wine cellars in Malá Tŕňa.
2. Hire a bike and ride the Tokaj wine route. The dense network of cycle routes will keep any cyclist happy, and there are plenty of stops and viewpoints worth your time along the way.
3. See Tokaj from the barrel-shaped lookout tower, 12 metres up.
4. Take a boat trip on the Bodrog river from Viničky into Hungary.
5. Try the traditional Tokaj onion soup.
6. Visit the Renaissance manor house of Francis II Rákóczi in Borša and the large park that surrounds it.
7. See the manor house in Trebišov, set in an English landscape park, and the mausoleum.
8. Explore the Latorica Protected Landscape Area.

Tokaj wine cellars and storing wine in oak barrels

Like any self-respecting wine region, Tokaj has several wine cellars with the ideal temperature and conditions for storing wine long term and keeping archive vintages. I visited the Tokaj & Co wine cellar, which dates from the late 14th century. At more than two and a half kilometres long, it’s the largest wine cellar in the Tokaj region. At first, though, it wasn’t used for wine at all, but as a hiding place from Tatar raids. Finds suggest that wine growing in Tokaj may go back as far as the 3rd century. In the 13th century Italian settlers arrived and, so tradition has it, brought the Furmint grape with them. It’s still one of the three main varieties grown here.

Fortunately, the wine cellars in Tokaj have a far more pleasant job these days. The wine stored here at low temperatures later goes on sale all over Slovakia, and in Asia and Brazil too. The wine is kept in oak barrels, which help it oxidise properly, because oxygen seeps through the oak. There are more than 1,500 barrels down here. I’ll leave you to work out how many litres of wine that is. Cheers. Just make sure you wrap up warm for the tasting: it’s about 8°C in the cellar and the tasting lasts a little over an hour.

View this post on Instagram

Protected designation of origin and the grape varieties allowed in Tokaj

Tokaj has a protected designation of origin and is a closed wine region with fixed boundaries. Skalický trdelník (the chimney cake from Skalica) and bryndza, a soft, tangy sheep’s cheese, are protected in a similar way. You can read how bryndza is made too: on my travels around Slovakia with the Kraj grocery chain I also visited shepherds in Orava. Strict rules govern winemaking in Tokaj to keep its quality as high as possible. Only three grape varieties may be used to make Tokaj wine: Furmint, Lipovina and Yellow Muscat.

Why is Tokaj wine so good, and where do the cibéby gathered in putne come from?

Wines from the Tokaj region owe their quality to the favourable conditions the vines grow in. The vineyards stand on volcanic bedrock. Natural stone and tuff help the grapes grow and ripen well. Long Indian summers and morning mists in autumn are the secret behind the first-class wines of the Tokaj wine region. The morning mists give rise to what are known as cibéby, which are picked by hand. So what exactly are cibéby? Put simply: mouldy grapes. But…

What are cibéby and putne?

A cibéba is a grape attacked by noble rot. The mould gets inside, the berry splits and all the water evaporates. That leaves the aromatic compounds, antioxidants and sugar concentrated in the berry. The affected berries are picked by hand, one at a time, from every bunch and then macerated (steeped) in special containers called putne, known as puttony in Hungarian Tokaj. A putňa is a wooden tub that holds about 25 kilograms of cibéby. A skilled picker can gather five to eight kilograms a day, so filling a single putňa takes about three to four days. That’s why wines made from cibéby are rare, and so typical of Tokaj.

What’s the difference between Tokaj in Hungary and Tokaj in Slovakia?

Historically, Hungarian and Slovak Tokaj are one and the same region. What few people know is that it’s one of the oldest defined wine regions in the world (it has been a closed region since the 18th century). Hungarian Tokaj is much bigger and is even on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Our part of Tokaj is still waiting to be added to the list. Ask any winemaker here whether Hungarian or Slovak wine is better, though, and naturally they’ll tell you Slovak. Why? Because the sun comes up earlier on our side.

@milan_bezmapy+249,000 followers

Follow me on Instagram

Follow

The Tokaj lookout tower: a wine barrel 12 metres tall

The barrel-shaped lookout tower rises to 12 metres and is definitely worth a visit when you’re in the Tokaj region. It has been open since 2015 and it’s free to go up. I don’t know whose idea it was to build a lookout tower in Tokaj shaped like a wine barrel, but whoever it was gets ten out of ten from me. Brilliant idea, Mr Architect. I really like it.

What does Tokaj onion soup taste like?

Traditional Tokaj onion soup is slightly sour and made from very basic ingredients, because the Tokaj region used to be poorer. Naturally, it can’t do without wine either. The wine that suits it best is dry Tokaj samorodné, a blend of all three varieties, so that’s the one to cook with. You’ll need butter, onions sliced into rings, semi-coarse flour, salt, pepper, a bay leaf, croutons and cheese.

Visiting Tokaj in Slovakia

I’d definitely give a visit to Tokaj more than one day. Book a place to stay that includes a wine tasting and bike hire. With plenty of cycle routes and viewpoints, a lookout tower and good wine, it’s a great choice for a romantic weekend for two in Slovakia. Cheers.

You might also like my article in which I compared Slovak free-range eggs.