About Tokaj Slovakia

Tokaj Slovakia is the independent guide to Slovak Tokaj: the seven villages on the Slovak side of the Tokaj wine region, their cellars and wines, and the people who make them. We want you to arrive knowing where to go, what to book and what to expect, in your own language.

Why this guide exists

Most travellers know Tokaj as a Hungarian wine. Fewer know that the historic wine landscape continues across the border into Slovakia, where Bara, Čerhov, Černochov, Malá Tŕňa, Slovenské Nové Mesto, Veľká Tŕňa and Viničky form a closed wine region that the law defines by the cadastral areas of these seven villages.

Planning a visit here is harder than it should be. Information is scattered across large regional portals, winery websites and brochures, much of it only in Slovak and often years old. Opening hours change, many family cellars open only by arrangement, and event pages can still show dates from past seasons. Tokaj Slovakia puts the practical answers in one place, keeps them current and tells you how current they are.

Who we are

Tokaj Slovakia is a small, independent editorial project. It is not an official website. We are not a tourism board, a wine association, a municipality or a public body, and no one in the region has approved or endorsed what we write. The site is run by the operator (see the details below), who is responsible for its content.

We do not sell wine. We earn money in a few clearly labelled ways, all described on how we make money.

Our editorial principles

Independence

We decide what to cover and how to write about it. No winery, guesthouse, organisation or sponsor reads our texts before publication, and no one can pay to change them. If a grant or a contract ever funds a piece of work, the page it concerns says so.

Clear labels

Paid content is always marked. A business that buys a Partner package carries the label "Partner" and never moves up a list because of it: lists are sorted by village and then alphabetically, for everyone. Affiliate links, once we switch them on, are labelled on the page and marked as paid links for search engines too.

Verified listings

Every listing shows when we last verified it and how: on site, by phone, with the owner or from a public source. We check all listings twice a year, in March and April before the season and in August before the Open Cellars Day (Deň otvorených tokajských pivníc). If a listing has not been verified for 12 months, it carries a visible note asking you to call ahead.

When our sources disagree, or we cannot confirm that a business still welcomes visitors, we do not publish the listing until we can. Cellars belonging to private individuals appear only with the owner's consent. Our figures and legal facts come from one data set with sources and dates, which you can check on Tokaj facts.

Corrections

We will sometimes get things wrong. Every listing has a link to suggest a correction, and you can also write to us through the contact form. We reply within 7 days. We check each correction before it goes live, then update the page and its date. Owners can fix their own factual details at no cost, whether or not they ever buy anything from us.

Responsible drinking

Tokaj is about wine, but this guide is not an invitation to drink a lot. Slovakia and Hungary both have zero tolerance for alcohol when driving (0.0 ‰). Wherever a page involves tastings, we suggest the train, a designated driver or staying overnight. We make no health claims about wine, and the site is not aimed at anyone under 18.

Words and respect

We describe Slovak wines in their own traditional terms, such as výber and samorodné, and explain them on first use and in the glossary. We never call Slovak wines "Tokaji" or "aszú": those are Hungarian terms for Hungarian wines.

Slovak and Hungarian Tokaj are one historic landscape split by a border. The Hungarian part is a UNESCO World Heritage Site; the Slovak part is on Slovakia's Tentative List. We write about both sides with respect, explain the shared history and the differences plainly, and leave old rivalries out of it.

How listings work

Every winery, cellar, guesthouse and restaurant in the region can be listed free of charge, and staying listed costs nothing. A basic listing covers what you need to plan a visit: location, contacts, opening hours or how to book, the languages spoken and the date of our last check.

We build listings from publicly available business information (the business's own website, the regional tourism board, OpenStreetMap and public business registers) and from what owners tell us. Businesses near the region but outside the seven villages may appear where they are useful to visitors, always marked as outside the delimited wine region.

Owners can add, correct or claim a listing at no cost. Claiming a listing has nothing to do with paying: once we have confirmed that you run the business, you can update its factual details. The editorial text stays ours, as in any independent guide.

More about us

• How we make money: where our income comes from and what money never buys
• Press: story ideas, boilerplate text and brand guidelines for journalists
• For businesses: free listings, corrections and Partner packages
• Tokaj facts: key figures with their sources
• Contact: questions, corrections and cooperation