White wine process of secondary fermentation of champagne. The enrichment of some of the population created a craze for rare wines. This phenomenon, which was already responsible for the development of sherry in England, was reproduced in Central Europe. The discovery of the benefits of the noble rot on white grapes took place around 1650 in Hungary for the development of Tokaji wine. Hugh Johnson declared that: "the Tokay of three centuries ago was the best sweet wine in the world, it was inherited from a long-standing winemaking tradition". Developed with a grape whose exceptional maturity is due to a trade secret,
History of Rioja wine The completion of a railway system linking Logroño to Bilbao, Madrid and Irun coincided with the onset of the phylloxera epidemic in Europe. The French were the first and hardest hit by the louse, which created an immediate and insatiable demand for all the wine the Rioja could produce. Amidst devastation in the French wine industry, dozens of négociant and French winemakers, mostly from Bordeaux, traveled to the Rioja to set up wineries, where they could continue to produce wine – bringing with them extensive knowledge, techniques and experience. This ushered in a period of unprecedented growth and prosperity for