WTN: Truly sweet dreams

1994 Uri Borok Pinceszete Tokaji 6 puttonyos
Highly complex fragrance of dried apricots and figs, caramelised pears, fresh blond oranges, roasted coffee, curry, saffron, salt and thyme. Explosive attack with wonderful tension between intense dried fruit, sweet richness and oriental spices on the one hand as well as the acidity of freshly squeezed ripe oranges supplemented by mouth-coating minerality on the other hand. Finishes medium sweet with the wow factor. Now in its best drinking window. Incredible performance considering that 1994 was a lesser vintage in Tokaj. - My subjective rating: 94/100.

BTW: Tokaji from great vintages have a huge downside: wine lovers might not live long enough to explore them in bottle maturity

Cheers, Rainer

[David M. Bueker]

The time to maturity and market access are the two things that have kept me away from these wines.

Perhaps someone here could help me with a 6-putt bottle I have.

This bottle was given to me at least a decade ago by a Hungarian acquaintance, with whom I've since lost contact. The shoulder label fell off the bottle years ago, and that must have been the only place where the vintage year was noted as I don't see it listed anywhere else on the bottle. Does anyone know if I can determine the vintage through other info on the label(s)? There's a serial number on the neck band - including at one point a letter "J" in large, bold font over a small "90". Could that be it, or is that indicative of something else?

Also, I'm familiar with the rule that one should store Essencia Tokaji vertically because of the incredibly fine sediment. Is this true of the higher number putts as well? I see that my bottle, stored on its side, has thrown quite the copious amount of the stuff. If it's going to take a year or more for that to settle to the bottom upon being stood up, I might as well set it upright right now.

Thanks very much!

Perhaps someone here could help me with a 6-putt bottle I have.

This bottle was given to me at least a decade ago by a Hungarian acquaintance, with whom I've since lost contact. The shoulder label fell off the bottle years ago, and that must have been the only place where the vintage year was noted as I don't see it listed anywhere else on the bottle. Does anyone know if I can determine the vintage through other info on the label(s)? There's a serial number on the neck band - including at one point a letter "J" in large, bold font over a small "90". Could that be it, or is that indicative of something else?

Also, I'm familiar with the rule that one should store Essencia Tokaji vertically because of the incredibly fine sediment. Is this true of the higher number putts as well? I see that my bottle, stored on its side, has thrown quite the copious amount of the stuff. If it's going to take a year or more for that to settle to the bottom upon being stood up, I might as well set it upright right now.

Thanks very much!

Tom, the vintage might be branded on the cork. The serial number on the neck band could indicate the lot number of the bottling.
Sediment is quite rare with Tokaji as far I know. Your bottle might have crystallized acidity from cool storage.
I store all Tokaji apart from Eszencia horizontally. Eszencia is so extremely concentrated that it dehydrates wooden casks and/or natural corks. Hence, to avoid leaky bottles I store Eszencia vertically.

Tom, the vintage might be branded on the cork. The serial number on the neck band could indicate the lot number of the bottling.
Sediment is quite rare with Tokaji as far I know. Your bottle might have crystallized acidity from cool storage.
I store all Tokaji apart from Eszencia horizontally. Eszencia is so extremely concentrated that it dehydrates wooden casks and/or natural corks. Hence, to avoid leaky bottles I store Eszencia vertically.

Thanks very much for that, Rainer. I guess I'll have to peel the cap off to check the cork if I really want to know, then (which I hate to do, since the foil and the Hungarian emblem on the paper band around it are so pretty!).

Yeah, this bottle definitely has precipitated something out over the years. Dark, fine, and very silty looking. Crystallized acid? Regular ol' sediment? I have no idea.

But I know one way to find out....