Near Castle Boldogkő, the sun’s last rays flow over the hills almost vertically, highlighting the ripe yellow-green that the grape leaves reach as the autumn harvest draws closer. There is little sound but the whistle of the wind and the few dog barks it brings. 
According to legend, the castle was built on the happiness of seven men who married the seven beautiful daughters of a fruit-dryer who had helped a Hungarian king hide from the Turks. The grateful king then gave the fruit-dryer land, provided that he help the men to build a fort against the Turks. The clever fruit-dryer offered the hands of his daughters to get the construction going – thus both father and sons-in-law earned their happiness. (Boldogkő means happy rock in Hungarian.)
The striking colors, the vines, the hills and the view from the top of the romantic castle have been here in Hungary’s oldest wine region, Tokaj-Hegyalja for several hundred years. Now, however, they are increasingly put on display as well as other points of interest in the region as Tokaj tries to reinvent itself as a high-end tourist destination.



Five-star tourists
 


One of the most remarkable symbols of this is the Andrássy Residencia, a five-star wine & spa hotel. A former residence of the Andrássy family, the historic yet simple facade of the building hides a large swimming pool, various saunas, a colorfully lit cave bath with various types of jacuzzis, as well as a massage and wellness center. It also employs a chef who worked with the famous Brit Gordon Ramsay and formerly cooked for Hungary’s first Michelin-starred restaurant, Costes. “It wasn’t an easy decision, but as a former country boy, I decided to risk it. I haven’t regretted it since,” Attila Nagy told us while flipping an omelet.
 According to the staff, many Slovakians drive across the border just for the spa. The hotel, which is owned by CIB Bank and managed by Accent Hotel Management, is trying to cooperate with wineries and restaurants in the region in order to raise the average number of guest nights. “If we want to raise our 1.8 average guest night to the ideal 2.2, the region needs to provide enough entertainment for a long weekend,” Imre Csordás, head of Accent Management said. 


According to Csordás’ vision, the region could be turned into something similar to Austrian Wachau, a town that attracts connoisseurs and epicureans. For this to happen, the bicycle route infrastructure would need to be developed between wineries, the roads leading to the region would need to be improved and there should be a shuttle bus service for wine tasters as well. Also, the mentality of the towns involved would need to change. “Life stops here at 6 o’clock in the evening. Obviously, for city dwellers, this does not work,” he pointed out.



Changing times 



But even if the change of Tokaj into a high-end tourist destination is not very fast, there is little doubt that it is taking place. Ten years ago, tourists were mostly limited to kayakers and canoeists on the River Tokaj and the River Bodrog – they would stay in camping sites and find that there were very few open cellars and they would be selling third-rate wine. 
Winemaking was a completely different business, too. Factory workers or farmers from nearby would grow grapes for income to supplement their day job wages. It was good money in those days – a good harvest would buy a new car. “Of course, if you asked a grower back then about his grapes, then he would reply ‘It’s going to be a good harvest, there is a lot of fruit’,” as Zoltán Bihari, head of the Tokaji Borvidék Szőlészeti és Borászati Kutatóintézet, a wine research institute pointed out. (More high-quality growers would talk about the grapes’ sugar-content or other chemical attributes, as they only leave a few clusters of grapes on each plant, quantity is almost never an issue.)


Of course, Tokaj has a very long history of winemaking. It was a grape-growing region when the Magyars entered the area on their horses and it was the first site in the world where grape-growing areas were ranked. It is because of its largely unaltered role that UNESCO accepted it as a World Heritage site. 



Drinking business



However, this millennium-long heritage also means that change is difficult. High-end wineries such as Disznókő, Oremus and Degenfeld, to name a few, are usually backed by foreign investors and are somewhat suspiciously viewed by the local winemakers. One cause of the undisplayed but nonetheless existing animosity towards them is that these wineries are financially strong enough to support making the best wines, even if they make a loss. Degenfeld, for example, has not had a profitable year since 2007 – while its revenues remain stagnant at below HUF 200 million, and several other big names are in a similar position. This would be untenable for small-scale wineries.


Of course, Tokaj wine is not necessarily bad business. A renowned Hungarian winery, Szepsy, had revenues of HUF 101 million, with a profit of HUF 68 million. Oremus drew in revenues of more than HUF 440 million last year with a profit of HUF 18 million. But for most winemakers, spending – or earning – this much is simply unimaginable, leading to a vastly different view of the region’s present and future needs.


High-paying tourists are at least seen by many as a good source of revenue. This is especially obvious if you compare the economy of Tokaj-Hegyalja with that of a much smaller wine region, Villány-Siklós. In Villány, Bock Borászat, one of the most well-known in the area, had revenues of a whopping HUF 840 million (a sixth of which is profit), rivaled in Tokaj only by Tokaji Kereskedőház Zrt. Villány’s Csányi Pincészet turned over even more, HUF 1.3 billion, though at a loss. Still, Tokaj does have something to offer that no other Hungarian wine region can: several hundred years old wines. In a wine museum that will be opened to the public soon, several hundred thousands of bottles of Tokaji have been stashed away by enthusiastic collectors throughout the ages. A sip of a 1972 Tokaji might not be a big treat in terms of a contemporary wine (it is past its peak), but it is an experience worth shelling out for all the same.


It is a taste of the past, with a somewhat murky, but interesting future – just like Tokaj itself.