ROYAL TOKAJI, NYULASZO ASZU 6 PUTTONYOS 1993

from compressed aszú grapes and added to a base wine, which re-ferments. This results in a wine with high residual sugar, acidity and extract. The puttonyos number reflects how many 20kg hods of berries are added, and the higher the number the greater the intensity and sweetness of the finished wine. In recent decades the system has simply reflected the proportion of berries, rather than a counting of hods. After fermentation, the wine was aged for three years in small casks of Hungarian oak. At bottling the wine had 218g/L of residual sugar and an acidity level of 10.3g/L.

In a 1997 review, Wine Spectator found the wine ‘complex and multilayered... clean and pure, with loads of tropical, dried apricot and dried fig, vanilla bean, ginger snaps and curry... Bravo!’ A year later, Stephen Brook relished the wine’s ‘lovely racy honeyed nose, smoky, dried-fruit aromas. Lean, firm, robust, voluptuous, with fine acidity giving tangy citric tones. Creamy, complex and very long’.

Richard Hemming MW reported in 2017: ‘Caramel, milk chocolate, mint, pear and ginger – the list goes on. Fractal complexity and endless persistence... Captivating, profound, extraordinary.’ In the same year, Peter Richards MW wrote in World of Fine Wine: ‘...the palate explodes in a burst of vigour and juicy energy, full of tangy acidity and bittersweet candied fruit... somewhat old-school, but with plenty of life and swagger in the bones.’

In 2019, Neal Martin said in Vinous: ‘Floral nose features yellow plum, dried honey and quince notes that blossom in the glass... well balanced, offering quince, marmalade and dried orange peel toward the finish. This significantly improves with aeration. Perhaps the first really great post-1990 Tokaji.’

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