Royal Tokaji Aszu Essencia (500ML) 1995

  • 94 Robert
    Parker
  • 94 Wine
    Spectator
  • 92 Wine
    Enthusiast
Sold Out - was $169.00
OFFER 10% off your 6+ bottle order
Ships Fri, Apr 26
You purchased this 4/14/24
0
Limit Reached
You purchased this 4/14/24
Alert me about new vintages and availability
Royal Tokaji Aszu Essencia (500ML) 1995 Front Label
Royal Tokaji Aszu Essencia (500ML) 1995 Front Label

Product Details


Varietal

Region

Producer

Vintage
1995

Size
500ML

ABV
8%

Features
Collectible

Your Rating

0.0 Not For Me NaN/NaN/N

Somm Note

Winemaker Notes

Tokaji Essencia (Essence) is the most fabled and rarest of all. Essencia is the first run juice of the Aszú grapes, which seeps from the press under the grapes own weight. The sugar content is extremely high, and the wine will ferment at an extremely slow rate, often over many years. Normally Essence will be used as a blending wine, although under exceptional circumstances, the best wine from the best grapes in a top vintage, will be released in its own right. These wines, will keep for many years (as will most Tokaji), and often command very high prices. Its legendary restorative properties are widely documented in Hungarian folk lore.

Professional Ratings

  • 94
    Deep amber colour. Candied fruits, aniseed and orange peel. Very lifted and fragrant. A feisty palate with apricot and peach. Lacks a little cohesion at the moment but it is very complex and engaging, a lovely transparency about it. Excellent, but wait a few years. Range: 92-94
  • 94
    Thick and dense yet never heavy, with aromas that flit from floral and vegetal to caramel and smoke and back again. There's noticeable sweetness matched by a brisk acidity that need time to integrate. Fine, lingering finish. Seems monolithic today, so be patient.
  • 92
    The sweetest Aszú wine, with 217 grams per liter of sugar (only pure Essencia is sweeter). Honeyed nuts, brown sugar, orange blossom and chocolate aromas waft from the glass. Full and viscous in the mouth, this balanced wine, with a modest 8.5% alcohol, has beautiful flavors of toffee, caramel and orange tea. Finishes long and complex. Imported by Wilson Daniels Ltd.
Royal Tokaji

Royal Tokaji Wine Company

View all products
Royal Tokaji Wine Company, Hungary
Royal Tokaji Wine Company Winery Video

Royal Tokaji was founded in 1990 by well-known author Hugh Johnson and a small group of investors who were inspired to restore and preserve Hungary’s precious wine legacy after the fall of Communism. Tokaji is the world’s original sweet white wine – the “cult wine” of the 18th and 19th centuries – and the Tokaj wine region was the first to have classified vineyards. At the end of the 17th century, Prince Rakoczi classified the finest vineyards into: great first growths, first growths, second growths and third growths. Royal Tokaji owns five of those first and second growth vineyards, including one of Hungary’s two great first growths: Mézes Mály.

The winery produces a range of exceptional wines from dry to sweet, including several single-   vineyard aszú (botrytis-affected) wines and Essencia, the free-run juice of botrytised “raisins.” The wines’ distinct character results from the varied volcanic soils of the classified vineyards, indigenous grapes and yeast, traditional winemaking methods and barrel-aging in the winery’s 13th-century underground cellars. Richness with vibrant acidity is the hallmark of all the Royal Tokaji wines.

Image for Other Dessert content section
View all products

Apart from the classics, we find many regional gems of different styles.

Late harvest wines are probably the easiest to understand. Grapes are picked so late that the sugars build up and residual sugar remains after the fermentation process. Ice wine, a style founded in Germany and there referred to as eiswein, is an extreme late harvest wine, produced from grapes frozen on the vine, and pressed while still frozen, resulting in a higher concentration of sugar. It is becoming a specialty of Canada as well, where it takes on the English name of ice wine.

Vin Santo, literally “holy wine,” is a Tuscan sweet wine made from drying the local white grapes Trebbiano Toscano and Malvasia in the winery and not pressing until somewhere between November and March.

Rutherglen is an historic wine region in northeast Victoria, Australia, famous for its fortified Topaque and Muscat with complex tawny characteristics.

Image for Hungarian Wine content section
View all products

Best known for lusciously sweet dessert wines but also home to distinctive dry whites and reds, Hungary is an exciting country at the crossroads of tradition and innovation. Mostly flat with a continental climate, Hungary is almost perfectly bisected by the Danube River (known here as the Duna), and contains central Europe’s largest lake, Balaton. Soil types vary throughout the country but some of the best vines, particularly in Tokaj, are planted on mineral-rich, volcanic soil.

Tokaj, Hungary’s most famous wine region, is home to the venerated botrytized sweet wine, Tokaji, produced from a blend of Furmint and Hárslevelű. Dry and semi-dry wines are also made in Tokaj, using the same varieties. Other native white varieties include the relatively aromatic and floral, Irsai Olivér, Cserszegi Fűszeres and Királyleányka, as well as the distinctively smoky and savory, Juhfark. Common red varieties include velvety, Pinot Noir-like Kadarka and juicy, easy-drinking Kékfrankos (known elsewhere as Blaufränkisch).

KOE167348_1995 Item# 167348

Internet Explorer is no longer supported.
Please use a different browser like Edge, Chrome or Firefox to enjoy all that Wine.com has to offer.

It's easy to make the switch.
Enjoy better browsing and increased security.

Yes, Update Now

Search for ""