“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.”
The Wine Bible by Karen MacNeil, 3rd edition, 2022, Workman Publishing, page 445.
Where to find it? Please click on our page "Taste".
* Alc. 4.6%, Residual sugar 380 g/L, Acidity 11,6 g/L, Extract 110 g/L.
* Yield 6 L/ha (1gallon/acre) = 1 bottle/375 vines = 1 cc/vine.
* Individual, first class, botrytized aszú berries, with over 50% sugar content, were picked berry by berry, throughout October, November and December, from Zéta, Muscat, Hárslevelű and Furmint grape bunches.
* Source: exclusively from our first class Király, Betsek and Veresek vineyards.
* Average daily aszú berry quantity gathered by a harvester: 45 lbs = 20 kg.
* The free run juice from the 5,2 tons of botrytized berries from our 22 hectares (=50 acres) was under 300 liters (80 gallons).
* Completely natural, local wild yeast fermentation without any nutrient addition.
* Fermented in glass jars and briefly in new Hungarian oak barrel (Miklóssy, 225L, light toast) for a combined total of 20 months.
* Fined and filtered using bentonite/paper filter/membrane.
* Hand bottled on June 18, 2016. Cork: Extra Procork 45x24 mm.
* 789 bottles produced (375 ml Saver Essencia bottles).
* Aged in bottle for an additional six years prior to its release in 2022.
