2010 Tokaj Oremus Tokaji Aszú 5 Puttonyos Tokaj Hungary (500 mL) 500 ml

Tokaji Aszú is about as decadent as it gets, a wine of such profound sweetness, mesmerizing complexity, and frustrating rarity that popes and kings have prized it in the 400 years since it was first produced in modern-day Hungary. 

The wine’s unfathomably rich core of sweet fruit and backbone of laser-focused acidity also makes it extremely long-lived, which means that our 95-point, library 2010 Oremus offering is just getting started. The only thing short-lived about the Oremus is its availability, especially at its even more surprising sub-$100 price. If any wine can safely be called a cellar essential, this is it.

Tokaji Aszú belongs to that revered clique of botrytised wines, which can only be made when nature permits botrytis, or the “noble rot,” to work its magic on sugar-swollen grapes. The botrytis dehydrates the grapes and concentrates the flavors, which in the case of the 2010 Oremus, creates a luscious elixir packed with flavors of nectarine, orange peel, spice, and toasted nuts. No vinous experience can match it.

We’ve always been entranced by Tokaji as a team, but that entrancement turned to obsession when we first encountered an Oremus bottling a few years back at Brooklyn’s famous River Café. We never miss the chance to devour the café’s fiendish foie gras preparation, accented with strawberry gastrique and pistachio, before heading back to the Golden State.

“Should we splurge on a bottle of Tokaji?” our VP of Wine Eduardo Dingler asked rhetorically. We spotted the Oremus, knowing it had the backing of iconic Spanish producer Vega Sicilia.

The amber-hued Oremus shared the foie gras’s unctuous texture, but it was the wine’s acidity that lifted all of the flavors, and left us all in satisfied silence as the dish quickly vanished.

“If there is a better food and wine pairing, I don’t know what it is,” said Eduardo dreamily as the dishes were cleared away.

Memories of that evening came rushing back when we were able to acquire a tiny allocation of the 2010 Oremus, now one of the most sought-after producers in the region. And at our price, this “wine of kings and king of wines,” as King Louis XIV famously said, won’t be around for long.