Tokay Storage

[sraun]

How should I store an open bottle of Tokay? Cool dry dark place (a little cooler than room temperature), refrigerator, something else? I'm guessing it's going to take us on the order of 1-2 months to go through the bottle.

Comments

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Is this a Tokay Aszu? What sweetness level (number of Puttonos) if it is?

Generally speaking, you need to refrigerate it. You want to restrict oxidation and such, so at least stopper the bottle. It's better to use something like the "vacuvin" which lets you pump the air out after stoppering it, or a can of nitrogen to displace the oxygen first, or something.

Even so a couple of months is *highly* optimistic in my opinion.

[sraun]

It does not say Aszu on it that I can find. It's an Australian variant.

Do you know somewhere in town where authentic Hungarian is regularly available? mrissa was wondering.

If it goes off before we finish it, ah, well.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Haven't bought any lately. Availability is way down since Hungary went capitalist, for whatever reason. Back when, we could reliably get it at Chicago-Lake Liquors, but certainly not recently.

I haven't seen any of the Australian variants, but I've had some other dessert wines from there that employed the same basic techniques.

Wot he said...

[lsanderson.livejournal.com]

Ungassed with nitrogen or a noble gas, I'd say a couple of weeks is pushing it.

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

Huh... I've never had a problem with my Tokay going off even after weeks. Well okay I did once, but I had left the bottle out overnight and then put it away. Usually the sugar and alcohol content of tokay is so high you have to work at it to get it to go off. It is not quite port, but a 5 azuz or equivalent (about 5% sugar iirc, and 18% alcohol) is pretty darn storable in a fridge with a good stopper.

But I am a barbarian from Colorado.

[jeff-duntemann.livejournal.com]

Much depends on how twitchy your sense of "the wine's gone bad" is. Tokay keeps well, from what I've heard (I prefer other dessert varieties) though to stretch it out eight weeks I think refrigeration is essential. I've kept open bottles of 18% port in the fridge for a couple of months without mishap, though many people call me a wine philistine. Dessert wines are something I don't do often enough to have much experience with, alas. (The off-dry wines I really like are not technically dessert wines.)

When I have an open bottle of a conventional (10%-15%) wine that I know for some reason isn't going to go in four or (max) five days, I pump the air out of it. This is important with dry reds, which don't taste right when chilled to fridge temps.

[brashley46.livejournal.com]

I'd have to go along with the others here. Mind you I've no experience with Aussie Tokay, only the real Tokaji, which is not "cooked" or fortified ... once I open a bottle, it doesn't last long enough to go bad.