Apologies if you end up as one of the lucky few to own one and have trouble pouring this out of the bottle. Wine Spectator is right, it’s thick as maple syrup.

Just look at that color!

And it’s 10 times more complex and profound than even the $50 maple syrups out there. You can pour it on pancakes, but please don’t. Every sip of this elixir is basically medicine for the body and the mind.

This is an Esszencia. Not a Puttonyos, nor an Aszú Esszencia, the far more common designations below a true and pure Esszencia. 100% of the stuff they measure in tiny amounts and add to all other sweet Tokay wines. If and when you spot these true unicorns in nature, they are in 187ml bottles. Some come with a silver spoon to serve them with. Finding one in a larger bottle is rare as a ‘33 Double Eagle.

Also worth noting, this is more than half sugar. All pure natural sugar from individually picked botrytized berries that have so little juice left in them that it takes thousands of berries to make a bottle of these. It barely lets the yeast work and getting it up to the 7% alcohol it just can’t ferment beyond takes months and months.

Yet also it barely feels that sweet. Nowhere remotely cloying as numbers show, and on the contrary, it’s supremely BALANCED with surreal levels of natural acidity, layering in mind-bending freshness. It truly is a freak of nature, must be tasted to be believed. Pure magic.

We were allocated a whopping 12 bottles, so please be considerate.

98 Points – Wine Spectator

“Like maple syrup on the palate, this is lush and viscous, with a beautifully expressive beam of honeyed apricot enlivened by rapierlike, mouthwatering acidity that plays off the mouthcoating texture, showing fascinating equilibrium. A lovely range of blood orange pâte de fruit, dried mint, butterscotch and lemon wax is layered with the rich apricot character, all ringing out on the long, long finish. Furmint, Hárslevelü, Muscat and Zéta. Drink now through 2046.”