Robe — Old gold to burnished amber, dense against the light
apricot
honey
saffron
candied orange
tea leaf
Palate
Immense sweetness cut by electric acidity, so the wine finishes fresh rather than heavy
Ageing
20–100 years; near-immortal
Serving
10–12 °C, in small glasses
Tokaji Aszú is made from furmint berries shrivelled one by one by noble rot, picked singly into hods and measured in puttonyos, then macerated in a base wine to draw out their concentrated essence. The method is old: aszú appears in sources of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the vineyards were classified by 1730, and a royal decree closed the region's boundaries in 1737 — a century before Bordeaux's 1855.
Its court celebrity was unmatched. "Vinum regum, rex vinorum" — wine of kings, king of wines — ran the phrase repeated at Versailles, and the Tsars kept a Cossack detachment in the region to escort their supply home. Apricot, honey and saffron on electric acidity: Aszú is among the longest-lived wines made.