Victorwine wrote:Thanks David. So Tokaji Aszú Essencia is not the same as Essencia. Theoretically a Tokaji Aszú Essencia would be blending 7 Puttonyos to a given volume of dry white wine or juice made from "healthy” grapes. (Or just back sweetening a given volume of dry wine produced from “healthy” grapes with a given volume of the Essencia juice). What’s the alcohol content listed on the label of the 2006 Pendits Tokaji Aszú Essencia?
Actually, I have never seen a labelled bottle of it - I've only tasted sample bottles that Márta Wille-Baumkauff brought along. Traditionally, producers used to try and achieve 12% in their Aszús, but I doubt Márta's 2006 AE ever reached that mark (no use of cultured yeasts, all spontaneous fermentation, so a wine is going to reach the alcohol level it "wants to" - that is, among other, what Rainer meant referring to the natural winemaking here, worth noting perhaps that Tokaj Pendits is now bio-dynamically farmed).
Historically speaking, by the way, AE was something like the winemaker's special selection of a particularly successful 6 Puttonyos uplifted by the addition of some pure Eszencia, hence the name Aszú-Eszencia (= Aszú with the addition of Eszencia - an extremely noble version of "back-sweetening" a dessert wine already sweeter than e.g. Sauternes!), the best he could offer in a top vintage, so to speak. Today, of course, thanks to the concentration achieved at top wineries, an Aszú sporting 180 g/l residual sugar is not per se exceptional. Top vintners agree, however, that AE isn't AE unless it's qualitatively exceptional, in other words, the sweetness alone won't (or rather: shouldn't!) do.
An no, Aszú is never made from a finished dry wine with the addition of Eszencia - that wouldn't be economically viable (there's only 0.14 litre of free-run juice per 100 kilos of dry berries, but hectolitres of must or dry wine made from "healthy"/un-botrytised grapes). Instead, Aszú berries (botrytised/shrivelled dry berries, as in German TBA, if not drier than there) are being added to fermenting Szamorodni-style must (or finished dry wine, an inferior but less risky method applied during the Socialist era, but only a handful of modern wineries - maybe this is what you heard or read of, e.g. Royal Tokaj Wine Company?), which is then pressed after maceration.
Greetings from Switzerland, David.
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„J'ai gâché vingt ans de mes plus belles années au billard. Si c'était à refaire, je recommencerais.“ – Roger ContiLast edited by David from Switzerland on Sun Oct 31, 2010 6:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
This one will be hard to top! 