You spent WHAT for a Szamorodni Tokaji? The 2009 Szepsy

[John Trombley]

7/9/2017 rated 95 points: I purchased bottles of this after watching for some to appear on the US market for over a year, based on my experience when in Hungary and as a sipping companion to Barbara and I on our Viking river cruise through Hungary, Austria, Slovakia, Germany, and the Netherlands. $90 with shipping ($81 without) and 11.5 percent alcohol. Sadly this was the last cruise we were ever to make. So in memoriam:

$90/500 ml at Saratoga Wines in New York. Came completely without shipper name or warning labels and is obviously gray-market and outside the normal channels of distribution.

Rich bronze. Zippy orange flower, sweet dried mango and tropical melon, overlay bitter almond marzipan, the whole suggestive of great complexity and many memorable scents on first pour from the Coravin into the Impitoyable. In the mouth, the wine still seems quite young, with vibrant acidity and punchy orange zest, hints of clove and anise, and capped with bitter lime zest; one almost ignores the sweetness because of the latent power. Extremely long, juicy, bright and fruity finish much like an ethereal orange mousse.

After 24 hours open in the glass the power has mitigated and the citrus peel has softened into a delicate bakeshop-like dried fruit. That citrus zest will fuel many years of positive change in the cellar, but it is not currently undrinkable, just a little tight, and could benefit from previous decanting if you want it a little more tamed.

This is a wine that drinks like a 5-putt Aszu, but was probably picked en masse and not blended. It's so touched with Hungarian fierceness now that it seems like Communist Tokaj in a way, but no wine was ever sold during that regime that had the simultaneous depth and clarity of flavor that this shows so effortlessly. For its class absolute genius wine-making. 95 RPP/100; drink 2019-2050.

It is to our benefit and not Istvan Szepsy's that the Tanzer review (91 points score) caught this at an obviously awkward moment, justifying its conservative score by pointing to a lack of the very things that are this wine's strengths. Drinks like a $100-plus jenniec of Tokaj. Highly recommended and a relative bargain.

[Eric Menchen]

Impitoyable.

What is that?

[John Trombley]

At first I thought you were asking what a Szamorodni was. Perhaps I should let folks in on that who might not know. Most Tokaji Aszus are mixtures of different pickings, some high botrytis, some low. However, a Szamorodni ('as it comes' [from the vineyard]) is an entire vineyard picking, with noble and high-acidity berries harvested together. This gives a much more variable style of wine and can be either dry or sweet (although there's a move to standardize the style). The best Szamorodnis can be much more individucalistic and vivid than the Aszus.

There are a whole line-up of critically-designed tasting glasses from Peugeot (France) that are meant to make oddities of style and flaws in wines more perceptible. 'Impitoyable' means 'Merciless', and is supposed to describe the unrlenting way the glass exposes such things. The one I have is called 'Le Taster' and has no stem, a flat bottom, and two pinches, one on the side, one on the bottom, for inserting fingertips to grasp the glass:

http://www.peugeot-saveurs.com/en/produ ... rre-38-cl/

[Eric Menchen]

Thanks for that info John. I was asking about the merciless glass, since the only thing I could figure out was the literal translation of the word. But the Szamorodni explanation was educational as well.

[John Trombley]

By the way, bought 3 more jenniecs of this and took delivery yesterday. Yeah, that impressed at $90 per.