"You certainly own a lot of fabled acreage, I must say.
I don't ever receive invitations from ... new Burgundy vintners like that (Oh, we own 3 hectares of Richebourg, 7 Grands Echezeaux, 10 Beauxmonts...)!"
David Schildknecht, The Wine Advocate, letter to Alana-Tokaj, 2006
Our vines grow on:
22 acres (8.8 hectares) - first class slope of Betsek,
6 acres (2.4 hectares) - first class Kiraly,
25.5 acres (10.3 hectares) - Veresek ,
and a few small first class experimental plots.
Everything we do, every day in our vineyards, is to prepare our grapes for a magical transformation, the natural wonder of botrytis.
The noble rot, so cherished around the globe for its powers to yield the greatest sweet wines, must find our vineyards the kindest in the world, since it visits them more frequently than any other on the planet, returning without fail every year, especially to grapes in our Betsek and Veresek vineyards.
On each hectare we grow 5,000 vines, at low and medium height, close to the Earth's warmth. We hand prune, hand till all season, and hand harvest all of our grapes. Our average yield is 2 barrels of wine per acre, or 4.5 barrels of 60 gallons per hectare. For our sweet wines the average yield is even lower than that.
We rack and bottle every drop of our wine by hand.
Each glass of our wine represents the concentrated essence of an entire vine.
What makes Alana-Tokaj shine?
We threw away the books about "efficient" grapegrowing. We dedicated our faith to the vineyard, respecting the wisdom of the ancestors, who first recognized the greatness of these classified sites back in the 1500s.
We refuse any and all shortcuts in order to make the most natural and most delicious wine we can. We pushed back to traditional ultra-low yields, below those of Yquem, and returned to extreme late harvest, still working in late December, when around the globe all others have already left the vines. We never purchase or contract grapes.
Our approach does not allow added sugar, added acidity or added alcohol.
In the vineyard we use
In other words, no compromise in the vineyard and no secrets behind closed doors in the cellar. The wines already speak volumes of what is possible if you have the right approach and dedication. Above all, they are just what you would expect them to be: unique, pure and delicious.