Thanks Joe for the extensive reply. One thing that I'm not clear about:
do you ferment the base wine just like a regular wine, and after it's
fermented you mix it with the "dough"? Or do you ferment everything
together? I would think it's the former, because that article that I
referenced in a previous post mentions that the base wine used has
13-15% alcohol, which implies that it's already made.

Another thing that I don't understand is: if you added a bunch of sugar
to a regular wine, it would be bound to start fermenting again. It
would most likely not ferment to dryness because the alcohol % would
become toxic for the yeast, but I would think that the alcohol level
would go up, not down. However, the Aszu wine has 10-11% of alcohol and
they start with a base wine that is 13-15% alcohol. The article I
linked has a one-sentence explanation for this, but I didn't understand
it.

Finally, why is Tokaji Aszu able to last up to hundreds of years? Very
few regular wines can last more than a few decades.


Joe Sallustio wrote:
> > Instead
> > of botrytized grapes I'll use raisins. Instead of a Hungarian oak cask
> > I'll use a carboy and Hungarian oak cubes. The main question right now
> > is: what should the base wine be like?
>
> Franco,
> I don't want to rain on your parade but Hungary was under communist
> rule for quite a while and if they could have made Tokaji Aszu that way
> a lot of people all over the world would have been doing it a long time
> ago. They didn't; if anything current methods are sometimes less
> correct now. Anyways here is the deal.
>
> Aszu describes the shriveled berry; it's not the grape variety. Each
> Puttonyo is a six gallon container. That container of berries gets
> 'mashed' (in the old days by foot) until a dough is created; the skins
> have to be just right for this to happen. A gonc is a 30 to 35 gallon
> barrel to which the dough is added. the normal levels are from 3 to 6
> puttonyos. I have had 3, 4 and 5 puttonyos and can tell you if I ever
> made anything that good I might just quit. Most were made under
> communism, (you can tell by the way the crown looks on the label).
>
> They mix all of this together in large tubs and then into the barrel it
> goes. They can last several hundred years, really.
>
> The base wines is usually Furmint but can also have some Harslevelu and
> Muscatel. It's just plain jane wine grapes; Furmint is not anything
> special as far as I am concerned; I would say it's kind of like a good
> Chenin Blanc. (Not that I have had many, it's hard to get Hungarian
> wines over here in the US unless you are talking Bulls Blood.)
>
> Instead of raisins which could give you a cooked taste you might want
> to freeze some white grapes and remove the water by dripping; or use a
> really good white concentrate. You need to get to 40 to 60% strength,
> the trick would be deciding how much to add if you use concentrate.
>
> The way I read this they dump the 30-35 gallons of plain white must
> into a tub and add x puttonyos to that. That gets mixed up and once
> fermentation starts they put it in some sort of bag and tread it again;
> that goes to the barrel and sooner (actually much later), Tokaji Aszu.
>
>
> This is not going to be Tokaji Aszu but so what; it could be great.
>
> The best book I have seen on this is my Hungarian neighbors, "The Wine
> Book" by Dorozynski and Bell. I borrowed it and need to get it back to
> him...
>
> Hope that helps,
>
> Joe