Essencia, Tokaj – 1999 – 100 points – Wine & Spirits
100 points
“… Royal Tokaji’s 1999 Essencia rendered our panel speechless with its seamlessly complex array of flavors. Our critic Tara Q. Thomas had no choice but to give it 100 points, the first such score in our magazine’s history.”
“How can a wine score 100 points? When it leaves an entire panel of tasters speechless, struggling to find words to describe a wine that seems to defy possibility. Is it enough to say that it smells like a bergamot orange grove in full bloom? That it really, truly feels like satin, so slippery smooth that professionals can’t even keep it from going down their throats? The flavors recall spice, smoke, flowers and tropical fruit, but like satin, the weave of this wine is so tight it’s impossible to make out exact threads. It’s so sweet and acidic it almost hurts, in a good way. I can’t think of anything it lacks, or anything that might make it better. That’s pretty much the definition of perfect, and thus, the score. And at 2.9 percent alcohol, 600 grams per liter of sugar, and 18 grams per liter of sugar (it’s solely free-run juice captured from the aszú grapes), it will outlive us all. Stupendous.”