#Painstaking Process

[xtruss]

How the World’s Rarest Wine Is Made! It's a Painstaking Process to Create Royal Tokaji's Essencia.

— By Mike DeSimone and Jeff Jenssen | Robb Report | February 6, 2024

Royal Tokaji

One of the biggest heartbreaks of making wine is a lost vintage, which is usually due to weather conditions before grapes have a chance to fully mature. This has been the case in several years since 2009, the last time—until now—that Royal Tokaji was able to produce bottles of its ultra-rare Essencia. The conditions weren’t right for azsú berries in five out of the six vintages between 2009 and 2016 (the current release), but 2013 offered the biggest heartache of all.

“I think most producers in the region would agree that 2013 is one of the greatest vintages in Tokaji, ever. We had perfect conditions for azsú, and we had amazing quantity as well,” Royal Tokaji managing director Charlie Mount tells Robb Report. “We had a lot of Essencia dripping, but after five or six years in our cellar, we couldn’t find anything that we thought was worth bottling. And it was one of the most painful decisions we’ve ever had, having a huge amount of Essencia not meeting our standards and having to decide not to release the 2013.”

Although neither 2014 nor 2015 provided ideal conditions for enough quality azsú berries to produce Essencia, the summer and fall of 2016 offered perfect circumstances to capture the precious free-run juice (more on that later) that goes into making this prized elixir. And prized it should be. Only the eighth vintage of Essencia released in the winery’s 34-year history, sipping Royal Tokaji 2016 Essencia from specially designed crystal spoons that reveals its deep amber hue and aromas of dried apricot, ripe summer peach, and honeycomb. It rolls over the tongue like syrup with nimble viscosity and a sumptuous vein of acidity that keeps its inherent sweetness from overpowering its flavors of apricot nectar, peach pie, candied orange peel, and fresh honey that leaves a trail of tangerine zest in their wake.

The Grapes Falling Prey to “Noble Rot”

Meaning “dry” in Hungarian, azsú berries are grapes that have been afflicted with Botrytis cinerea, the grey mold called Noble Rot that is responsible for the creation of Tokaji Azsú as well as Sauternes and Spätlese and Beerenauslese Riesling. Unlike common household molds, Botrytis requires an optimal setting to do its work; if it is present in a season that is relentlessly wet, it will ruin the grapes it’s growing on, making them useless for winemaking. But a period of humidity, especially one with cool, foggy mornings, that precedes a dry period just before harvest creates an ideal situation. The fungus dehydrates the grapes, which increases the proportion of fruit sugars and acids, offering a sweeter, more intensely flavored berry from which to make wine. Affected grapes shrivel to the point that they look like raisins.

In regular azsú wines, botrytized grapes are collected in large baskets known as puttony and added to 136-liter barrels of base wine. The number of baskets of sweet grapes added to the base wine give the Tokaji Aszu the Puttonyos rating of either five or six Puttonyos. For a Tokaji Aszu wine to be labeled today as five Puttonyos, it must have at least 120 grams per liter of residual sugar and a wine labeled as six Puttonyos must have at least 150 grams per liter of residual sugar. Essencia’s sugars can run between 450 and 600 grams, requiring strong acidity to balance out the sugars; Royal Tokaji’s 2016 weighs in at 534.6 g/l of sugar.

Although Tokaji Azsú has been a favorite of noblemen, poets, and artists for centuries, Tokaji Essencia is in a league of its own. While Louis XIV may have proclaimed that Tokaji is “The King of wines, the wine of Kings,” Hugh Johnson OBE, the esteemed British wine writer who founded Royal Tokaji in 1990, has been known to call its Essencia “medieval Viagra.” Each 375-milliliter bottle of Essencia contains the juice of 88 pounds of dehydrated berries, which comes out to about 50,000 grapes; compare that to an average 750 ml bottle of dry wine, which is made with about two and a half pounds or approximately 200 grapes. The painstaking production process involves picking the finest botrytized grapes from the best plots and then, as Mount says, “It’s a question of waiting.” The term “low-intervention winemaking” is tossed about with abandon in the wine world, but Essencia is truly the epitome of the style.

Royal Tokaji’s Wine Director Zoltán Kovács

After harvesting, shriveled Furmint, Harslevelu, and Muscat Blanc grapes that have lost 80 percent of their water are placed on racks and left to drip. “We don’t press them or apply any pressure so a tiny amount of liquid drips through a grating at the bottom of the collecting vat. We draw it off from time to time, we keep every grape variety and every site separate, and we do an initial selection,” Mount says. The juice absorbs atmospheric liquid from the high humidity wine cellar; naturally occurring yeast from the cellar settles on the surface and a top-down spontaneous fermentation takes place. Up to 70 percent of that free-run juice is poured into appropriately sized glass demi-johns; as grapes from vineyard plots are kept separate, the containers vary in size from 10 to 50 liters. The entire process takes at least five to seven years; Mount continues, “All along we’re waiting and tasting and towards the end we’ll make a final selection of the batches to be blended and bottled as Essencia.”

Although a bottle of wine boxed with a crystal spoon can seem like a bit of a gimmick, the viscosity makes sipping from a spoon rather than a glass a much more efficient means of imbibing with minimal loss. After all, 15 percent of the initial juice has already been lost sticking to the grates, and up to 30 percent more is discarded prior to blending. Only 2,300 bottles of this treasured liquid were made (priced at $1,416 each), and each one holds roughly 25 tablespoon-sized pours; you seriously want to devour every last drop. If you can’t get your hands on a full bottle but are dying to give it a try, a select group of restaurants such as Oiji Mi and Gabriel Kreuther in New York City have bottles and crystal spoons on hand for your sweet sipping pleasure.

— Mike DeSimone and Jeff Jenssen, also known as the World Wine Guys, are wine, spirits, food, and travel writers, educators, and hosts. They have been featured guests on the Today Show, The Martha Stewart Show, Better TV, and the CBS, FOX, and NBC networks. They also write Robb Report's weekly newsletter The Oeno Files.

[canisalbus]

Well, after some several hours i finally finished this. I used the "Kermes" art as a reference. Im doing another, but that im wanting to change thr colors. The sun was something that i wanted to draw because of your arts that has some red background. dunno why, but my first idea was drawing machete with Dante's clothes or Vergil.... i hope you liked it :)

.

[firelise]

I think the other thing i love about Conclave is some of my favorite poets and writers are queer people who are/have been profoundly devoutly religious like the moment i found out benjamin alire sáenz went to monastery and was on track to becoming a priest before becoming a writer I was just like "Aha! That's what it fucking was, that's where this philosophical torturous burden and deep empathy for others I'm feeling from your work comes from" deeply intellectually curious devout clergymen are such interesting people, its delicious, you cant get that shit from anywhere else

[weirdglassthing]

You could draw pyke and rett kissing under the space mistletoe 👉👈 if you want

Got carried away on this one… pykerett guys <3

[shenpie]

napoleon Yeeeeaaaaaahhh

ill edit this later when i have the unmoving version saved cuz its on my ipad rn >:\ and im LEAVING!!!!

[xxlady-lunaxx]

The Hashira all failing to save someone ⮷

Gyomei - the children of the orphanage

Tengen - his siblings

Giyuu - Tsutako, Sabito

Kanae - her parents

Sanemi - his family (including Genya)

Kyojuro - in a sense, his father

Muichiro - Yuichiro

Obanai - himself (from his family, mentally), his family (in his opinion?), Mitsuri (w Muzan)

Shinobu - Kanae

Mitsuri - ...

[superfallingstars]

Snapetober Day 15: Serpent

[anderstrevelyan]

How many times do I have to rewrite this same 1,000-word segment until it loves me

[bloodebayou]

on mysophobia

mysophobia (colloquially known as "germophobia") affects lourdes and his daily life profoundly. guests entering his home are to remove their shoes in the designated area (the shoes are immediately stored in a specific, airtight chest) and put on clean slippers before washing their hands. depending on his mood, the way he feels about the person, and how cleanly he perceives them to be, lourdes may be bothered by their clothing, and might insist that they shower and change (he has spare clothes; they don't get to wear his).

the foyer is cleaned and thoroughly disinfected sometimes multiple times per day; it depends on how many times it's been entered. if guests have been over or lourdes has left the house and returned, the entire house must be disinfected. the house is huge, so this takes a very long time. his clothes must be stored in a dress bag in a specific closet until they're cleaned. his shoes are to be cleaned and disinfected, including on the inside and on the soles. all of this is done by familiars.

while out, lourdes will always be wearing gloves, unless he removes them to smoke, or any other reason, but he will be very careful not to touch anything while they're off. he's very careful about removing them and not letting the ends touch anything, and if they do, he always has his familiars carry backup pairs for him.

if he were somehow forced into a situation where he were someplace that he deemed too dirty to go to willingly, his anxiety would be tremendously high. he would refuse to sit until physically unable to continue standing, or until someone thoroughly cleaned and disinfected a spot for him. even in the vent of the latter occurring, he would be extremely on edge and visibly upset and shaken. his posture would be stiff, his breathing heavy and shaky, and he would be wringing his hands nonstop. if possible, he would beg someone to get him out of there.

with sexual partners, he insists that they shower and brush their teeth before they do anything, usually. he's not bothered by the concept of their own germs at all, but might be concerned that they have particles on themselves, since almost no one is as conscious about these things as he is. usually, a kiss is fine, but he will rarely do much else without knowing they've just washed.

[clare-with-no-i]

content is done. just editing left. this might take a day or two, please be patient with me — I've never been so emotionally attached to a story's conclusion in my life so I'm just giving it a lot of care

[strangebrew]

happy birthday crosby

[ellabswilliamson]

Headcanon that Lev and Ellie end up bonding over archery.

[nicksmoderncouch]

i think when the pod hits episode 200 i’m gonna try to make a compilation of every time they clap because its so funny to me for no reason

[alyimoss]

tweaking... save me markiplier save me

[unproduciblesmackdown]

speaking of drawing people's faces and lifting any art of [will roland role based] characters overhead when you can tell the artist was actually trying to meaningfully use that inspiration beyond "brown hair. glasses" like wow once in a lifetime unsame as it ever was

not coming up a lot that Professional Illustrators are drawing will roland as [role] or like, in general, but that in fact there Are the examples of professional illustrator justin "squigs" robertson drawing him several times and it's like, doing stylized portraits of people working in theatre that are indeed focusing on distinguishable individuals versus, say, the style being more abstracted

all drawn differently but various gists are there, and none of the people in these group collages look interchangeable or like oh and this person gets thee "generic/default" look

there's also the fact i'm like 99% sure there's a squigs-drawn larger portrait of will roland just as himself that i love to think of / sure further encapsulates that "thank god this artist drawing Features" but i can't find it or remember exactly what context it was in. augh

but also there's this other deh illustration ft. wrol jared i found lol. bonus

[seiwas]

the desire to write smth so good that’s just. aching but in the best way? smth that lingers long past reading. smth that makes you get up in the middle to pace around before sitting back down to pick it up again because the emotions are reeling.

so you start to type only to realise that’s one biiiiig skill gap 🫠