Pajzos Tokaj Cellar has turned 25 this year and celebrated its ‘birthday’ on 23rd November by organizing a jubilee wine tasting to prove yet again that the winery cultivating 112 hectares of land in the Tokaj Wine Region still has a reliable background, is always ready for renewal and has not lost its momentum.

Pajzos Zrt was registered by the Company Court of Miskolc on 25 November 1992. The anniversary of this registration was celebrated by a tasting organized by the Cellar in the Sofitel Chain Bridge Hotel in Budapest.

Botond Gábor Bányai (BGB as everyone knows) editor in chief of the Borigo Magazine and Daniel Ercsey editor in chief of the WineSofa & editor of the Borigo Magazine

“We like to celebrate an anniversary with those people whom we live together with, we work together with, who help us and whom we help, who are similar to us and whom we resemble. We sincerely hope that this event will provide an opportunity to turn important professional relations into friendships.”

– Laurent Comas, the Director of Pajzos Zrt greeted his guests with these words. He has been leading the cellar for four years now and living in Hungary for 20 years. Jean-Louis Laborde, the owner of Pajzos Zrt, His Excellency, Eric Fournier, Ambassador of France in Budapest, Dr Eliza Kiss, Ministerial Commissioner, Prof. Richárd Hörcsik, Member of Parliament, János Aros, Mayor of Sárospatak were also invited to the tasting event together with the representatives of the Tokaj-Hegyalja wineries, members of the Sárospatak Wine Terrace Association, the business partners of the cellar and, last but not least, a number of winemakers and wine writers were also eager to participate.

Two dry and four sweet wines were introduced with complementing dishes created by Stéphan Rémon, the French chef of Sofitel. He could let his imagination fly to show how to serve other than sweets with sweet wines. “It is the Cellar’s intention to link the experience of drinking Pajzos wines with gastronomy” – said Laurent Comas, beginning the next 25-year period with this new concept.

Jean-Louis Laborde, who has been the owner of Pajzos Zrt since 1992 when he was only a member of an investment group but is now the single owner of Pajzos and Megyer Zrt, was looking back to the past 25 years sharing his following ideas:

“Everyone knew the world-famous Tokaji aszú, but the environment had to be accustomed to, first of all, and secondly, we invested a lot in the technology so that we could always guarantee the high quality of sweet wines; and we soon realized that the company would only be profitable if we are able to produce good quality dry white wines, too. Today, we can say that the direction we took was good and our dry wines have become successful, as well.”

There is a total of 112 hectares of vineyards in the estate with 52 hectares in the Pajzos and 60 hectares in the Megyer vineyard. As for the varieties, Furmint is grown in 37, Hárslevelű in 32 and Muscat in 22 hectares, respectively.

Ferenc Naár has been the Vine and Wine Manager of Pajzos Tokaj for three years now and is always trying to make the best out of the given vintage with respect to the bottle number (4-500,000 annually) of the Cellar. The Naár family has a long history and is still dealing with traditional winemaking in Hercegkút.

The introduction of the two dry wines – the popular “T” Furmint and the Furmint Selection 2015, which has won the Gold medal of the Hungarian Academy of Science Wine Awards in 2017 – was followed by the tasting of the best aszú wines of Pajzos: the 5 puttonyos aszú 2011, the Platinum winner at this year’s Decanter World Wine Awards as the “Best Hungarian Sweet” and the 5 puttonyos aszú 2006 winning gold medals at several international contests.

The Esszencia is coming...

This anniversary event of Pajzos offered a great chance to remember the rich history of the vineyards.

“While celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Company, we are aware of the value of those two vineyards we are lucky to be cultivating”- said Laurent Comas humbly. He gave the floor to Kornél Nagy, historian, connoisseur of the wine region, who presented the history of Pajzos and Megyer vineyards, remembering the former owners, Zsuzsanna Lorántffy, Ferenc Rákóczi I. , and the roles Kossuth and Kazinczy families played.

The event was closed by the tasting of one world-famous Pajzos Esszencia, the one of 2013.

This event made it clear that Pajzos Tokaj is to be reckoned with in the future, as one of the key players in the Tokaj Wine Region.