The Wine Bible by Karen MacNeil, 3rd edition, 2022, Workman Publishing, page 445.
Alana-Tokaj Tokaji Essencia
“Mind-blowing. Hypnotically silky. Intoxicatingly rich.
Tokaji Eszencia (which Alana-Tokaj spells Essencia) comes into the world in mere droplets of golden flavor. So little is made - just under eight hundred bottles - that it is bottled by hand.
The wine itself has remarkable choreography.
Its sweetness, light and lifted, seems to swell on the palate until you are dizzy with delicious delirium.
And although the wine is an astounding 38 percent residual sugar (380 grams per liter of residual sugar), sweetness is probably the wrong word, for the wine is a complex melange of bergamot, caramel, pineapples, mandarin oranges, mangoes and spices that bounce around on an electric current of acidity (11.6 grams per liter of acidity).
Alana-Tokaj’s vines (once the vineyard holdings of the royal Hapsburg family) are in two First Class vineyards - Betsek and Kiraly.
Winemaker Attila Gabor Nemeth has severely cut back yields (now below those of Bordeaux’s Chateau d’Yquem) and pushed the harvest as late as possible (into December/January in most years) to maximize the concentration of the grapes’ flavors. The wine is aged more than six years before release.”
Where to find it? Please click on our page "Taste".