2009 István Szepsy Tokaji Szamorodni Édes

Community Tasting Notes (3) Avg Score: 94 points

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  1/30/2019 - Andrew67 Likes this wine: 93 Points

  I liked this wine. All honeyed caramel, with a creamy, lingering finish. The acidity does enough to balance the sweetness, without ever imposing itself.

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  7/9/2017 - sweetstuff wrote: 95 Points

  Summary: Rich bronze color. Orange zest and orange flower, with bitter almond marzipan; complex tropical fruit and subtly nutty impression, with plenty of air relaxes pleasantly and integrates. Still quite young, with vibrant acidity and zippy orange flavor and capped with a bitter orange zest with touches of clove and anise, With bitter bitter citrus zest in the mid-palate. the considerable sweetness nearly unnoticeable underneath the other flavors. A nearly endless finish emphasizes this great classic dessert wine's transparency and clarity. A little tight yet for the most pleasurable drinking. Better in 2020 and will keep indefinitely until at least 2040. 95/100 RPP. Highly recommended.
  
  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 call 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.

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  10/12/2015 - sweetstuff Likes this wine: 94 Points

  Circa 10,500 Forint (US $50)/500 ml at Tasting Table/Taste of Hungary, Brody Sandor utca 9, Budapest, Hunfary, 1088, www.Tasteofhungary.com; Carolyn Banfalvi, carolyn@carolynbanfalvi.com; 010 36 30 298 0076, Reglevich Palace Cellars So-called Vodka Cellars. Located a block further north than the map seems to indicate. Served with new wine friends, fellow passengers on the Viking Longship Alsvin. Nearly had to have a hemorrhage to get this served with any degree of care and respect by the dining room crew who had offered via company policy to serve it sans corkage.
  
  Short cork in long necked bottle. Sheeting with no tears; light brilliant gold acquiring a brown cast with swirling. Nose provides orange soft resinous tea, linden leaf and a hint of grapiness, becoming broad and spicy and with a mineral-revealing, midrange clarity in a package just this side of powerful. Over the next two days becomes a lovely pure expression of Danube apricot and fiery orange providing an encouraging hint at a midrange plus future. At least equal to other five-putt wines. Now-2030.

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