Summary: 

Tokaj is no longer a ‘one-trick pony’ of the wine world, producing botrytised sweet wines that everybody respects for their balance and complexity – and hardly ever drinks. While such wines are still made and represent most of the value Tokaj creates, the past decades have seen some unprecedented changes and the rise of terroir-driven dry varietals that are becoming the growth driver in the region as Tokaj enters a new golden era of its long history.

This WSG Live will begin with an overview of the region’s distant past and the most recent developments, and then provide a thorough insight into local grape varieties, historical and modern wine styles, special methods of vinification, as well as the characteristics of the local terroir and the Tokaj vineyard classification system.

You will also learn about some key current trends relating to styling wines, planting new sites and sparkling wines before a Q&A session at the end.

Presenter: Gergely Somogyi

Gergely Somogyi is a ‘Tokaj allrounder’, based in the region and involved in multiple different Tokaj-related projects since around 2011. Apart from working as a contract wine steward for multiple regional wineries, he runs Tokaj Today, an independent news and information website about Tokaj, as well as organising and hosting small-group wine trips (including press and trade) to the region. He is also the Tokaj guide for the British wine travel website Winerist.com, as well as British wine tour operator SmoothRed. He regularly works as a regional expert, guide and translator for journalists coming to Tokaj to write wine and travel articles for international media such as Decanter, Vinum and Lonely Planet, as well as doing location scouting and guidance for foreign documentary photographers and film crews shooting in the region. He regularly gives masterclasses, lectures and talks on Tokaj and Hungarian wine-related topics in Hungary and abroad. 

He has worked as a mentor, on behalf of ICOMOS Hungary, for the Tokaj World Heritage Site Management Organisation in a UNESCO periodic reporting process, and he is also a former admin officer for the Confrérie de Tokaj and current admin officer of Vindependent, the Hungarian Association of Independent Winegrowers, as well as of Mádi Kör, a local winemakers' association.

You can find him online here: 

https://tokajtoday.com/