BARRA WINERY of TOKAJ

In the 18th century XV. King Louis of France remarked to his lover, Madame de Pompadour, when he handed him a glass of Tokaji aszú: "This is the wine of kings and the king of wines." But he wasn’t the first to say these apt-sounding words. This term for the wine has already appeared in XIV. King Louis’scourt menu.

„Vinum regum, rex vinorum”

In 2007, I started my winery by growing 0.4 hectares of my own and 2 hectares of rented grapes. I currently produce Furmint, Linden, Oliver Irsai, Sauvignon Blanc, Rhine Riesling, Syrah varieties on an area of 8 hectares. We are assisted by two permanent employees and we carry out the machine work with our own machine park. The spacing of thevines is 2.8mx1m, the height of the arms is 0.6m and 0.8m. We work with an average grape yield of 60q per hectare, which ensures good quality even in poorer vintages. Our vineyards are located in Rátka in the Isten-hegy vineyard and in Szerencs in the Kőporos vineyard.

The center of the estate is located in Szerencs on the Lower Cellar in a cellarwhichwasbuilt in the 1800s. This is where the traditional Tokaj wines are made, which spend the bottle maturing times in the bottle warehouse in Rátka in order to gain a worthy character until they get sold.

I make almost all of my batches with barrel maturation for a longer or shorter period of time,. I use both small 225-300 liter barriques and large 1000-1500 liter

ace barrels, the choice of which is always determined by the nature of the wines.

For my wines, I consider bottle maturation to be very important, which takes place in pallets placed in the bottle warehouse. This period can take from two to 12 months before I decide that the wine can be marketed.

Barnabas's goal is to make, compete and deliver traditional Tokaj wines to all parts of the world, so that everyone can get to know and taste these royal wines and by doing so,taste a little history.

„Vinum regum, rex vinorum”

"This is the wine of kings and the king of wines."