Royal Tokaji, 5 Puttonyos Aszu, 2017

We're a little late posting this, but February 1st was both International Furmint Day and Bart's son/Katie's brother's birthday. What is Furmint, you ask? It's a white grape grown in Hungary, in the region of Tokaj, and it's best known for making the dessert wine Tokaji (pronounced toke-eye; adding the 'i' on the end means "from Tokaj"). Tokaji has been famous for centuries. It was the very first created controlled appellation, well before even Port was established as a specific appellation. It's so famous that Emperor Franz Josef used to send Queen Victoria Tokaji Aszú every year on her birthday, one bottle for each month she'd lived, which means she received 972 bottles on her 81st birthday (life goals).

Not to go too deep into the weeds, but Tokaji is so sweet because the grapes are allowed to grow noble rot, Botrytis cinerea, a fungus that sucks the water out of the grapes and leaves highly concentrated, sweet juice (aszú actually means "dried"). Don't let that sound too gross to you--this stuff is dynamite. What does 5 puttonyos mean? A puttony is a large basket used to collect the grapes, and this was originally used to state how many baskets of grapes went into the barrel of wine. The higher the basket count, the more sugar you'd have and the sweeter the wine you would get. Technically, you can have as low as 3 puttonyos and as high as 6. You can go higher than 6, but that's extremely rare and extremely expensive stuff called Tokaji Eszencia. It's actually so sweet that you sip it from a fancy spoon. This is what Katie plans to buy some day if she ever wins the lottery.

Anyway, since it was International Furmint Day and Adam's birthday, which made it a very special day indeed, we decided to drink some Tokaji together.

Royal Tokaji, 5 Puttonyos Aszú, 2017

Mmmm, we love this wine! We're not personally big fans of sweet wine, but dessert wine like this is a different matter. It smells like honey and honeysuckle on a warm, gorgeous summer day, standing in one of the sunflower fields of Hungary near Lake Balaton (Katie previously spent a fair amount of time in Hungary, so this is another great example of nostalgia taking wine to the next level). The high sugar level makes it feel full in your mouth, and you also taste ripe white peaches and so much deliciousness. It's like drinking liquid sunshine.

If you have a special occasion coming up and want some fantastic dessert wine, you can't go wrong with this. If you ever find a bottle anywhere of 6 puttonyos Tokaji, consider yourself blessed.