Slovak Tokaj Wine: Styles, Grapes, Cellars

Tokaj is one wine landscape with a border running through it. Most of it lies in Hungary; seven villages on the southern slopes of the Zemplín Hills, above the Bodrog river, have been on the Slovak side since 1920. This section explains what is made here and where you can taste it.

What makes Tokaj wine different

Three things come together in Tokaj: volcanic hills with sun-facing slopes, a climate that in good years brings noble rot to the grapes in autumn, and traditional wine styles built around those botrytised berries, aged for years in cellars cut into volcanic tuff.

The rules are strict. Grapes for Tokaj wine may only come from qualified vineyard blocks (kvalifikované hony) and are certified at harvest; the wine must be made and bottled inside the region, and bottles with the traditional terms carry a state control number.

Seven villages, 907 hectares

Slovak law (§ 30 of Act No. 313/2009) defines the region as the cadastral areas of seven villages:

Together they form one of Slovakia's six wine-growing regions, a closed region that the law defines by the cadastral areas of these seven villages; the Act itself sets no area in hectares. The delimited area is commonly given as 907 ha (Košice Region Tourism, TASR), and the vineyard register showed 891 ha of vineyards in 2022. On 31 July 2025, ÚKSÚP registered 657 ha of Tokaj grape varieties in Slovakia and 42 wine producers in the region. Strážne, Ladmovce and Streda nad Bodrogom are not part of the region, although tourist material often groups them with it; MEA GRATI (Ladmovce) and Chateau Vécsey (Streda nad Bodrogom) lie just outside it.

Volcanic soils and long autumns

The hills are volcanic: andesite, rhyolite and tuff, covered by heavy clay and clay-loam soils that are stony and mostly acidic. Vineyards sit between 105 and 320 m above sea level, and only on slopes facing south, south-east or south-west.

The climate is continental: about 9.6 °C on average and about 608 mm of rain a year, mostly in June and July. For the sweet wines, the autumn matters most: long and dry, with morning mists. Grapes keep high acidity at harvest (12–14 g/l, according to the PDO specification), which is why the sweet wines taste fresh rather than heavy.

Noble rot and cibéby

In the right conditions a fungus, Botrytis cinerea, attacks ripe grapes in its benign form, known as noble rot (ušľachtilá pleseň). Damp mornings let it pierce the skins; dry, sunny afternoons draw water out of the berries. The grapes shrivel, and their sugar, acidity and flavour concentrate.

These shrivelled berries are called cibéby (singular cibéba) and are picked by hand, often berry by berry. Noble rot does not develop equally every year, and quantities are small: in the 2024/2025 wine year, ÚKSÚP certified 102,700 kg of grapes for Tokaj wine and 6,750 kg of cibéby across all of Slovakia.

The styles in brief

Slovak Tokaj wines carry Slovak traditional terms, explained in detail on Tokaj wine styles:

Samorodné, "as it grows": made from the grapes as harvested, with no cibéby added; dry (suché, any cibéby picked out beforehand for výber) or sweet (sladké, the cibéby processed together with the grapes).
Výber, 3- to 6-putňový: cibéby soaked in must or wine. The putňa number shows how sweet it is.
Výberová esencia and esencia: the richest and rarest wines.
Forditáš and mášláš: traditional wines made from the pomace and lees left over from the sweet wines.
Varietal wines: Tokajský Furmint, Tokajská Lipovina and Tokajský Muškát žltý, usually fresher and often dry.

The 3- and 4-putňový levels of výber are still made in Slovakia; Hungary dropped the equivalent levels from its rules in 2013.

The grapes

Three varieties dominate: Furmint (291 ha), Muškát žltý (197 ha) and Lipovina (169 ha). Since 2022 the specification also allows Kabar, Kövérszőlő and Zéta, which together cover less than half a hectare. More on Tokaj grape varieties.

Cellars dug into tuff

The wines mature in cellars dug by hand into soft volcanic tuff, cool, humid and lined with dark cellar mould. The largest, Tokaj & CO's in Malá Tŕňa, has about 2.5 km of corridors; in Veľká Tŕňa, 33 stone portals lead to more than 100 family cellars. See tuff cellars.

One landscape, two countries

The region was divided in 1920, and the name has been argued over since; EU courts ruled on it in 2012 and 2014. Slovak producers use the name Tokaj with Slovak terms, never "Tokaji" or "aszú", which belong to Hungarian wines. Only the Hungarian part is a UNESCO World Heritage Site; the Slovak part is on Slovakia's Tentative List. Read the history of Slovak Tokaj and Slovak and Hungarian Tokaj compared.

Where to taste

Most wineries welcome visitors but ask you to book; small family cellars open by arrangement, often by phone. Our wineries list shows what each offers. In Čerhov, the Tokaj Tourist Information Office opens during events (otherwise by phone arrangement), and two wine shops stock several producers.

To see many cellars at once, come for an event. The Open Tokaj Cellars Day (Deň otvorených tokajských pivníc) is usually held in mid-September, and the Tokaj harvest festival (Tokajské vinobranie) usually on the last weekend of September. Check events for confirmed dates.

Note: Slovakia and Hungary both have zero tolerance for alcohol when driving (0.0 ‰). If you plan to taste, come by train, agree on a designated driver or stay overnight in the villages.

All key numbers, with sources and dates, are on the facts page.

Tokaj wine: the Slovak side