The Harvest Days in Tokaj are 90 years old

At the end of the week, one of the biggest and oldest festivals of Tokaj-Hegyalja, the harvest days, started, for the three-day event about ten thousand people are expected in the small town located at the junction of the Tisza and Bodrog.

At the opening of the program series on Saturday afternoon, Government Spokesperson Alexandra Szentkirályi said: in different historical eras, the harvest always meant more than simple work, it was considered a holiday, as producers harvest the fruits of a year's work.

Those who plant grapes think long-term, and the farmers who create a winery or estate are building the future for their children and grandchildren, the government spokesman emphasized.

Comparing viticulture with government work, Alexandra Szentkirályi emphasized that the cabinet can and does have tasks to solve in the short term, but in the longer term it must think in terms of generations.

We try to support developments and investments that can determine the future of an area in the coming decades, even centuries, he noted. Subsidies worth several billion forints to wineries or regional infrastructure developments are very important from a tourism, cultural and religious point of view, said the government spokesman.

Zsófia Koncz, the parliamentary state secretary of the Ministry of Technology and Industry, the region's Fidesz member of parliament, spoke about

Tokaj-Hegyalja became part of the world heritage twenty years ago, but Tokaj wine has always been part of the Hungarian identity.

Investments are ongoing in this prominent tourist area, the four-lane highway 37 has begun, the Erzsébet bridge in Tokaj has been renovated, a hotel has been built in Tokaj, and soon it will be possible to cycle around Tokaj's Bald Mountain - the state secretary listed the investments.

We don't have a wine region with greater traditions than Tokaj-Hegyalja, Minister of Agriculture István Nagy announced at the opening. According to the head of the ministry, this wine region has the greatest renewable capacity and innovation in Hungary, which is also capable of creating new ones while keeping old communities together.

According to tradition, at the event, the leaders of the twenty-seven settlements of the wine region symbolically merged a basket of grapes that they had brought: during the so-called grape-merging ceremony, a special non-commercial wine serving representational purposes, the "mayors' wine", will be made next summer.

First organized in 1932, this year's ninety-year harvest days await guests with numerous concerts, performances, craft fairs, and wine offerings from the best wineries in the world heritage wine region. The event can be visited free of charge on the main square of Tokaj and on the surrounding pedestrian streets.

Source: vasarnap.hu

Featured image: MTI/János Vajda