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The region of Tokaj is one of the few regions in the world where it is possible to cultivate grape naturally for the production of sweet wines.
The origins of the cultivation of vineyards in the region of Presov-Tokaj goes up to the period of the domination of the Romans that started, after the conquest of the Pannonia, to cultivate grape. After the fall of the Roman empire, were the Slavics that continued the cultivation. When the Hungarian tribes arrived in 894 in this territory, they found an already developed viticulture. It is demonstraded that the name of the village and the mountain Tokaj has some Slavic origin. It derives from the word of the ancient Slavic " STOKAJ " that means the confluence of two rivers, the Bodrog and the Tisa.
The development of the viticulture was stopped in 1241 because of the invasions of the Tartars. In the time of these invasions the whole region became desert and subsequently, under the kingdom of Bela IV, were called some Italian farmers that brought some new methods of cultivation and also the variety of base, the furmint.
In the epoch of the wars against the Turks and after the conquest of the territory from the Turks in 1528, the region stayed 170 years under the Turkish domination. It was in this epoch that the greatest part of the wine cellars of Tokaj were dug in the volcanic ground of tufa.
The first law regarding the region of Tokaj was promulgated in 1655 and it controled the choice of the clones for the production of the selections of Tokaj and therefore it set the technology's bases of the production of the wines of Tokaj.
A memorable chapter of the history of the wine of Tokaj has tied to the prince Frantisek Rakòczy II: were his wine cellars that regularly furnished wine to the real court of Louis XIV (1638-1715). And it is this king of France that is the author of the famous saying on the wine Tokaj: "VINUM REGUM - REX VINORUM" ("the wine of the Kings - the King of the wines").
From the end of the XVIII century, there was the diminution of the surface of the vineyards. The greatest part of the vineyards of Tokaj had destroyed from the Filossera toward the end of the XIX century. The worth of the rebirth of the vineyards belongs to Szabo and Cziner, that planted the vineyards on American graft-holders.
A station of research for the region of Tokaj was constituted in 1924 in Mala Trna. The Slovak National Council promulgated the 6 th of March 1959 the law" The development of the viticultural region of Tokaj in Slovakia."