The Portius Story
Portius and the wine
Robert Wojciech Portius was a Scottish protestant who moved to southern Poland and became a
wine merchant. His main focus was to introduce Tokaj wines to the Eastern European markets. His
Polish home town was Krosno where he became affluent. He invested a lot of his wealth in his
hometown and played an important role in the development of the city of Krosno.
Robert Wojciech Portius is a well respected historic figure even today. Portius Society keeps his
legacy and promotes the Tokaj Wine Region.
We named our winery after Robert Wojciech Portius as Tokaj-Portius based on an agreement with
our Polish friends at the Portius Society in Krosno.
The Winemaker's philosophy
My name is Richárd Hörcsik. I am a first generation winemaker. I graduated as an agricultural
engineer with a winemaking major. I am a passionate winemaker who established his own vineyards
and his own cellar. The driving force in my everyday professional life is the love of grape growing and
winemaking which Tokaj and its heritage provides me with.
Our wine cellar Portius Pince was built in 2006 and located in the Gombos-hegy winecellars area. The
building is a combination of modernity and traditional approaches in terms of its inner and outside
appearance. As a winemaker, I make wine from the indigenous varieties called: Furmint, Hárslevelű
and Sárgamuskotály (Yellow Muscat).
I make my wine giving special attention to the terroir of the slopes that give the grapes its specific
individual character. My vineyards are situated at the historical lots of the Tokaj region. One of my
favorite wine is a well structured Hárslevelű from the Kincsem-slopes. The volcanic terroir and
winemaking craftsmanship allows us to make elegant and exciting wines with a very unique
character.
We conduct several rounds of selecting shoots and clusters during the vegetation period in our
Megyer-Slopes and Király–Hill lots. It provides us with the very finest wines of the varietal of Furmint
that are popular among our regular visitors from Poland and Hungary and guests from all over the
World.
The Wine Region of Tokaj is a heritage. It is the responsibility of the winemaker to continue and
renew in order to make distinctive Tokaj wines that are recognised worldwide.
The magic of Tokaj wines is the terroir, the soil and its minerality, the climate and the micro-climate,
the heat of the sunshine.
The ripened cluster of grapes start a new life as wine, just like a baby growing up and becoming more
mature over time. The winemaker’s mission is to make sure that the magic that nature has given to
us in Tokaj, carries on and is given to people when they open a bottle of Tokaj.
The beginnings..
We have come a long way, since the beginning of my career as a winemaker at my parents garage in
2003, when I replaced a pickup truck with wine barrels to work on my first vintage of wine. This was
followed by systematic learning and professional experience at one of the most renowned wine
companies in the Tokaj Region.
In 2005 I was introduced to the Portius Society and started my own
winery under the name of Tokaj-Portius Pinceszet in 2006. I learned to respect and read the signs of
a colorful and mystical region.
