4D - Tájépítészeti és Kertművészeti Folyóirat 33-36. (2014)

2014 / 35. szám - Novák Tibor József - Incze József: A tokaji Nagy-hegy felhagyott szőlőteraszainak támfalai = Retaining walls of abandoned vineyard terraces on Tokaj Nagy Hill

since thousands of years. Terraces increase the exploitation of radiation surplus resulting from the morphology, and provide efficient protection against slope erosion processes. Vine culti­­vation is recently highly mecha­­nized, since the cultivation of terraced slopes is very laborious, expensive, and require significant initial and contin­­uous investment, their extension signifi­­cantly decreased eveiywhere in the last century.1’2’3’4 Modem viticulture does nőt focus on terraced tieid, with the excep­­tion of vineyards producing the very top quality of wines. Fór this reason, former terraced vineyards were abandoned in huge extension throughout Europe.5'6 Vineyards with terraces can be found only in the most famous areas and vine­yards providing the best quality of wine; e.g. in the Rhine and Mosel valleys in Germany, the Cinque Térré region in Italy, the Rhőne valley in Francé, Wachau along Danube in Austria, along Douro in Portugál or Peljeáac Peninsula in Croatia. The rate of aban­­donment of terraced vineyards can be characterized through the example of Germany, where terraced vineyards in the i6th century were estimated in 45,000 ha, while recently just 11,300 ha remained.7 Another good example is Francé, where 40,000 ha terraces were cultivated in the i5th century, which hardly exceeds actually 6,000 ha.7 Dry built stone walls and steps, which are used to retain terraces and cover the steepest slopes, are typical land­­scape features of historical vineyards. They can be called ‘historic’ nőt only fór their traditional way of cultivation, bút alsó because their maintenance and renovation is no longer in use, nőt to mention their rebuild or reconstruction.6 Terrace cultivation and the constmction of retaining walls are very rare in Hungárián wine regions and they are restricted to the best sites ofthe most excellent wine growing regions. Thus terraced slopes with the dense network of stone built retaining walls occur mostly on the slopes of volcanic hills of Balaton Uplands and Tokaj-Hegyalja wine region. Abandonment of terraced vineyards on Tokaj Nagy Hill has already begun after the phylloxera disaster.8’9’10 Nowadays numerous abandoned (former) vineyards are natúré conservation areas, where valuable and protected flóra and fauna could find habitat in biocenosis11 due to the successional processes after they was left fallow (Fig. 1). The natural values and the humán constructed landscape elements of traditional viticulture in unique constitution consists the cultural landscape declared as World Heritage. The registration, evaluation, and further management of once cultivated bút long­­abandoned vineyards are key objec­­tives ofthe management plán of World Heritage sites currently being drawn up.12 On the constmction methods of retaining walls we have only indirect information. Balassa8 claims (based on archivál sources) that the constmction of stone dams was defmitely a skilled work and was carried out by seasonal workers from Mecenzéf (settlement in Abaúj county with population of Germán origin; actually: Medzev in Slovakia), who manufactured wide rangé of wrought iron products and they were practiced road-constmctors as well. Generally on-site stones were used and they were rarely transported far away. Processed sources of Balassa8 alsó mention that the motivation of stone dam constmction was nőt the terracing process of slope in several cases bút to pút the stones to the edge of the parcel while they were cultivating the area hence they occupied smaller area from cultivated vineyard. The most of retaining walls are nőt results of onefold constmction bút they developed under a continuous process during the cultivation when debris and blocks of stones were excavated and pút intő the stone dam (can be assumed due to practice existing still nowadays). A TOKAJI NAGY-HEGY FELHAGYOTT SZŐLÖTERASZAINAK TÁMFALAI | 4D 35. SZÁM 2014 | 23

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