For travelers who are solely interested in wines, and want to taste and buy wines, we especially recommend wine events. In such events, they can taste wines from several cellars. In early September in the Furmint Festival, visitors have a chance to come to know the excellent wines of the Mád cellars. While in late September, on St Wenceslaus Day and Autumn Festival, an open cellars program is held in Tállya. In April, Pálinka and Wine Muster is organized in Szerencs, and at the end of May the Saint Ivo - Open Cellars program is held in Abaújszántó.
Independently organized programs, such as visits to one or two cellars as part of a weekend trip or as a stop of a bicycle tour, can also be truly eventful. Most wineries offer programs that do not only show a complete picture of wine making, but the programs can fill the whole time you spent there. Visitors may book rooms and ask for local home made food with the flavors of the countryside. Families with small children can also undertake such tours, because Furmint House in Mád offers a wide variety of programs for the kids while adults explore the historical vineyards or take part in wine tastings.
Travelers can visit the vineyards where grapes are grown and gain insight into the difficult work of the wine maker. Tasting usually takes place in the cellar. Each cellar is unique in Tokaj-Hegyalja. The walls, however, of all the narrow tunnels carved into tuff-stone are covered by a noble rot called Cladosporium cellare. It aids the development of aszú wine and contributes to the unique atmosphere of the cellars. The bottles of museum piece wine are also covered with this soft greenish-grayish velvet, while young aszú wine drawn-off from barrels into bottles and still maturing in the cellar glows like sun in the light of our torch.
Tasting usually includes 6 to 8 wines, starting with fresh, young, dry and fruit flavored items , then exploring some wine specialties of the Hegyalja region such as "máslás" or "szamorodni" , and concluding with aszú, the royal desert wines. As everywhere, vintners are proud of their wines and they willingly share the secrets of the particular wine with interested visitors. They are also ready to tell why they created such a wine.
Visitors can acquire a more general and systematic knowledge of the viticulture and wine culture with a history of several centuries and establishing the reputation of Tokaj-Hegyalja in the Aszú House in Mád, in an interactive and playful manner. There are several wine museums in Tokaj-Hegyalja, but one never gets bored with them, because there is always something different and unique in each. For example, local wine makers donated most of the winery equipments of the Wine Museum of the Kapitány House in Abaújszántó, that is tools that served their fathers and grandfathers. Next to the wine museum, an ethnography and local history exhibition is opened.
