Picture this: you’re a bunch of grapes in Hungary. The year is 1600. Harvest time is ripe, so you call out, “Now! Now!” to the pickers passing by, waiting for a sign. Usually someone would respond by carefully removing you and your most-qualified neighbors, dropping you into their puttunyo (basket).

Ultimately the juice would be pressed out of your body and made into something that must be fantastic because they’ve done this year after year for generations. Your life and health are absolutely crucial to the annual process. You feel pretty important.

This year, however, a pesky enemy invasion lurks on the horizon, and your pickers are holed up in a safe cellar. You hang on the vine, and after a while your thick skin turns thin, and the sun begins evaporating the ever-important water inside you. Your self esteem plummets. You become aszu, dried out. As if that isn’t enough, you’re beginning to rot. Suddenly you don’t feel very noble.

Oh, how you were mistaken. Years later they will open a small bottle of wine produced from the teardrop of liquid your raisinated bodies offered at picking time, and what they taste is so unique unto itself, and so inexplicably delicious, you spark global recognition of the highest regard.

Russia will set up de facto camps within Hungary to assure their supply of your accidental nectar. Flirtations among French Aristocracy practically mandate gifts of your origin. You are declared necessary for good health by Pope Pius IV, and to this day you are the only alcohol allowed in the Pope’s chambers, where you are kept on the bedside table. You are the fortuitous king of your unintentional empire for centuries.

You are Tokaji.

I’d like to fast forward to today. And by jumping forward this far, please understand I skip an incredibly complex evolution of the world’s finest (in my opinion) dessert wine. Pages and pages of Tokaji’s living tragedy within Hungary are omitted. In brief, 200 years of an uninterrupted sweet wine dominance suddenly plagued by Phylloxera devastation, two World Wars, the re-drawing of borders that still leaves Hungarian vineyards in neighboring countries, a shift from democratic to totalitarian Communist rule, the elimination of management among the high, hard-to-reach, and sublime vineyards … I digress.

Louis XIV burned himself into quotable quote history when he declared Tokaji Aszu as “Wine of Kings, King of Wines.” Turns out those serendipitous, dried, rotten grapes produced an astounding sap that stole the hearts of worldly notables like Voltaire, Madame de Pompadour, Peter the Great, and Beethoven. Tokaji remained an earth-shaking libation until Hungary’s stint under Communist rule beginning in the 1940’s. Communism brought Tokaji’s soaring greatness to a deteriorating crawl.

Imagine Picasso kidnapped from his studio, given one paintbrush, and assigned one color in a monotonous assembly line cranking out thousands of paintings per day. Tokaji’s quality quickly evaporated under the push of Communist production quotas. And with it, the great Hungarian dessert wine’s well-earned, centuries-old reputation tumbled from Wine of Kings to non-existent. Meanwhile, other places on Earth were already producing incredible botrytis wines like Sauternes, so it was easy for Tokaji’s original clout to get swept under the rug.

Back to today, Communism fell out of Hungary in 1989 and old-school producers of Tokaji immediately banded together to resuscitate their withered royal. After all, the soil is still there, the families are still there, the passion is definitely still there, and now that the Reign of Mediocrity has left the building, the King of Wines, I’m happy to say, is back.

To begin, they referred to the vineyard classification of 1700 (the oldest classified vineyards on the planet - take that, Bordeaux!) and mapped out the land based on the centuries-old designation. Savvy wine pros from Hungary and around the world quickly moved to form the Tokaji Renaissance. The classification of 1700 stands today, unaltered.

Unfortunately for the dedicated growers in Tokaj, global re-exposure is an uphill battle. There is a lot more competition these days than four centuries ago. As an avid devotee, I’m not worried about the plight of Tokaji’s resurrection. Reality always wins.

You certainly do not need be a connoisseur to enjoy Tokaji. The rich, sultry mouth feel, mind-blowing acidity, deep honey and fig flavors, and a non-cloying finish leaves your mouth feeling more fresh than it did before the first sip. It’s all there whether you know all about it or not.

A final note to Tokaji fanatics: We’ve been blessed with the release of 100-point Essencia. My tasting notes on it are longer than this column, but if you happen to come across some, ask for the crystal spoon.

www.tokaji.com

- Reviewed by Emily Resling (missing.an.i@gmail.com)

Emily Resling feels at home in restaurants and hotels. She’ll eat anything she’s never heard of and stay anywhere with a proper lock - though she prefers a concierge, a spa, and turn-down service. Her passion for culinary adventure is matched by her lust for writing about it, in hopes of guiding fellow foodies to uncharted territory. She feels fated to explore faraway places and eat local fare, which occasionally leaves her Seattle-bound plants ironically needing water.