Versuch einer Darstellung der Lage und Ausdehnung des Hegyallyaer Weingebirges
$766.00 AUD
Sale price
$766.00 AUD
Regular price
Skip to product information
or ask us a question
or ask us a question
Tokaj history. Wiith provenance
Némety, Joseph
Versuch einer Darstellung der Lage und Ausdehnung des Hegyallyaer Weingebirges
Der Beschaffenheit dortigen Weinbaues, dann der Bereitungs- und Behandlungsart des Tokayer Ausbruches
1835, Wien (Vienna), Fr. Beck's Universitäts Buchhandlung
First Edition
$766.00 AUD
Sale price
$766.00 AUD
Regular price
Overview
In 8vo. Pp. [1] f.e., 102, [2] blank, [1] r.e.
Early nineteenth-century systematic account of Tokaj, written by Joseph Némety as an organizer of practical regional wine knowledge rather than as a celebrant of a famous name. At the time, wine districts were increasingly described through topography, archival record, and agricultural observation; Némety instead gives Hegyalja the form of a viticultural landscape, relating communes, soils, exposures, varieties, and cellar practice to the production of Tokayer Ausbruch. The wine already carried a learned reputation: Franz Forgách called it "vinum nobilissimum atque praestantissimum" and Hermann Conring named it "vinum generossissimum." Némety's contribution is to bring that reputation under documentary and technical description, including the chronology of botrytised berry selection and vineyard labor. The book is a historical and practical treatise on the Hegyallya wine region and the cultivation, preparation, and treatment of Tokaji Ausbruch.
Inside the book
The volume opens by defining the Hegyallya district through its wine communes, naming Tokay, Zambor, Tállya, and related places before turning to soils, exposures, and vineyard parcels. It then describes the cultivated grape varieties and the preparation and treatment of Tokayer Ausbruch. The historical section traces the emergence of Ausbruch through parliamentary records of 1655 and urbaria (feudal land registers or property records), arguing that the separate gathering of botrytised berries was not practiced before that point. Némety also treats the labor term "trina fossio" and connects its triple working of the vines with usage after 1560, quoting the phrase "separataque selectione, uvae passae" (separate selection of dried berries). The Anmerkungen (Notes) move through Claudian on the vine-clad Ister, Sextus Aurelius Victor on Pannonian vineyards, the Anonymous Notary of King Béla, and Hungarian historians including Szirmay, Wagner, Kaprinay, and Forgách. The closing observations place Habsburg wine production at 36 to 40 million buckets annually and record the presentation of 300 Hungarian wine varieties at Maria Theresia's court.
Condition
19th century half-cloth binding; printed paper label to the spine that appears to be taken from the original wrappers. Ex-libris Friedrich von Bassermann-Jordan (1872-1959), German wine estate owner, viticultural pioneer, and the most influential wine historian of his era, author of Geschichte des Weinbaus, which is the wine library of record for German viticultural history. Ink stamp to the title page with same provenance. Very limited foxing. Fine
Dimensions (inches): 7 1/4 x 4 1/2 x 1/4
Why La Fenice likes it
Early documentary wine history, uncommon in 1835, with a specifically narrow purpose: Hegyalja, its vineyards, and the making of Tokaji Aszú, one of Europe's most celebrated wines. We like books that catch a great wine before modern oenology and standardized its language, taking us from the wine mountain into the cellar and how this wine was made circa 1830.
About the author
Joseph Némety, agricultural writer, compiler, and translator, with a particular interest in wine:
From the Same Shelf