The other key investor was the current owner, agricultural engineer Jean-Louis Laborde. He was in the background of the winery life until 1997. In 2000 M. Laborde secured a majority share in Pajzos and then he initiated the replanting of Pajzos vineyard, ensuring optimal grape production.


Since then Pajzos wines have found their place at dinner tables, in prestigious restaurants and at exclusive gala dinners in numerous countries, thus the building fame of the Tokaj Wine Region and Tokaji wines.

Wines:

We make Pajzos wines from the premium grapes grownin our Pajzos Vineyard in Bodrogolasziand our Megyer Vineyard in Sárospatak. The wines are made with attentive work both in the vineyards and winery either with barrel aging according to Tokaj traditions or using modern reductive winemaking methods.

The premium Pajzos wines perfectly express the assets of these two superb vineyards: Megyer Vineyardgives crisp, dynamic wines of outstanding quality that are characterised by coolness, distinctive minerality and a fresh acid structure.

Sweet wines from Pajzos Vineyard are refreshing and flavourful. Fragrances and flavours of peach and a plethora of white flowers (elderflower, chamomile) with citrus and mandarin rise from the glass, treating the wine lover with gorgeous minerality. These wines are deservedly legendary: they retain their richness and fruit aromas for decades, losing nothing of the freshness proffered by the acid backbone.

Vineyards

Pajzos Vineyard is a south-, southwest-facing land with excellent attributes. Brown earth with clay strips mixes with andesite tuff, and this ground has excellent heat-retaining properties so grapes ripen beautifully and become supreme aszú berries. This last feature is thanks to the microclimate and Zsadány stream bordering the south of the area which provides the humidity necessary for the development of the Botrytis. Oak forests close the area to the north.

Pajzos Vineyard covers 87 hectares of which 54 currently produce grapes. There are 22 hectares of Furmint, 17 hectares of Hárslevelű and 17 hectares of Sárgamuskotály, as well as some experimental plantations.The majority of Hárslevelű was planted in the 1970s; more recent plantings took place between 2000 and 2004.

Megyer Vineyard has a southern aspect, southeast-southwest facing. It has variable soils, with strongly mixed rhyolite tuff, a soft rock that weathers and is excellent for creating wines with high extract content.

The microclimate is much cooler than in Pajzos Vineyard, and the lower number of sunshine hours as well as lower humidity mean the grapes ripen later and aszú berry development is slower than in Pajzos. The microclimate and soil make this land primarily suited to creating dry wines.

Megyer Vineyard is 109 hectares of which 63 hectares are currently in production: 24 hectares of Furmint, 23 hectares Hárslevelű, 10 hectares Sárgamuskotály, 6 hectares Chardonnay. Most are old vines planted between mainly 1968 and 1974.

Harvest

We carefully tend our vines through the year and harvest the grapes with great attention, in several phases according to wine types. We harvest the healhy grapes in full ripennes for the dry wines from mid-September.

We harvest bunches with very concentrated sugar content resulting from Botrytis for late harvest wines.

We pick the aszú berries one by one, each by hand, from mid-October till the end of November. Pajzos offers dry and late harvest wines, Szamorodni and Aszú wines in its product line.

PAJZOS winery: 3950 Sárospatak, Nagy Lajos U. 12.

Find out more about Pajzos wines: http://www.pajzos-megyer.com/hu/