Pannon Tokaj Eszencia 2005

PV Tasting Notes

Simply put: I think this may be one of the finest dessert wines ever made in the world. This is liquid gold, so pure, ethereal and totally sensational, explosive on the palate, freakishly complex, lusciously sweet, yet with superb laser like sharp citrus juices which keeps it vibrant and mesmerising throughout. The finish is endless. There is so much going on here, flavours of pineapple, citrus, lichee, orange blossom, strawberries and cream, dried apricot. For me it’s an almost perfect wine already, in truth, it’s the finest I have ever tasted of its type and I’ve had a few in my lifetime. Consider this, honey contains 400 grams of sugar per litre, this contains a staggering 680 grams per litre! It is only 1.5% Alcohol....it is totally extravagant, extraordinarily finessed, despite the massive residual sugars, this is superbly balanced by thrilling acids. Where will this go with time in bottle? Without doubt this has a most promising career ahead of itself; it is a legend in the making.
When is the perfect time to drink this elixir.... difficult to say the optimum time... sometime over the next 250 years.... that is... if you have the patience?
 

This is something to savour on its own, in tiny quantities, perhaps 10 or 12 ml in a small glass.

Eszencia
The botrytised berries for Aszu Eszencia (the most famous wine of Tokaj) were picked by hand and placed into small 25 kilo crates (puttonyos) in November. But the greatest, rarest, most sought after, and expensive of all Tokaji wine is Eszencia and can only be made in the greatest of vintages, on average one or two each decade. Hand-selected botrytis-affected berries, which are later needed for Aszú preparation, are gathered into a Putonyos and kept there for a couple of days before the Aszú paste is prepared. Due entirely to the berries’ own weight alone, some highly concentrated juices of the finest quality will have accumulated on the bottom of the keg. This is the free-run juice via a small tap that Eszencia is made from. The fermentation process is incredibly slow, yielding an alcohol content of between 1.5 and 4% only after several years. Normally an Eszencia’s residual sugar content is between 300 and 500 grams/litre, but it can surpass this figure. One keg containing 25 kilograms of over-ripe Aszu berries produces only about one litre of Essencia. (If not sold individually, Essencia is added to the Aszú wines to improve them yet further).
Because of its enormous sugar content (balanced always though by tremendous acidity), often syrup-like texture and extremely low alcohol levels, Essencia is not really a wine in the conventional sense, but rather a unique elixir, the quintessence of the grape, with an almost supernatural concentration of taste and aroma, especially if it is very high in sugars and lower in alcohol. It's something that every wine aficionado dreams of tasting at least once, and to do so is likely to be a life-enhancing and never-forgotten experience.