Definition: Putton

In Hungary, for the production of Tokaji (Tokay), a putton is a basket or bucket with a capacity of around 25 kilos of fruit (plural "puttonyos"), pronounced poutoniosch. From autumn until late November, grape pickers place "aszù" grapes (pronounced assou) in the basket, which are affected by noble rot, concentrated, or even candied by the action of botrytis, or, more often than not, simply dried. The grapes are harvested one by one in successive selections, and a good picker needs two days to fill their basket with 25 kg of aszù grapes, which are then stored separately. Depending on the number of "puttonyos" incorporated into the base wine, which is not concentrated by botrytis and harvested earlier in the season, the resulting Tokaji (Tokay) wine will have a richness that varies according to the enrichment in "puttonyos" (between three and six). The putton therefore becomes a unit of measurement. The aszú grapes are added either to a finished wine, triggering a new fermentation, which is always quite problematic in an acidic/sweet environment, or to a base wine that is already fermenting. Although now prohibited, some producers do not hesitate to add aszú to a wine from a previous vintage, and even fortify it by adding alcohol.

Scale of residual sugar concentration in g/l in Tokaj: 3 puttonyos = 60 to 90 g/l, 4 puttonyos = 90 to 120 g/l, 5 puttonyos = 120 to 150, 6 puttonyos = 150 to 180. Aszù Escencia = over 180 g/l.

See Tokaji.