A mythical wine. So sweet it could hardly ferment at all, made from the free run juice from selected botrytized aszu berries. Drunk from a spoon, too.

The Royal Tokaji Company Essencia 2000 Tokaji, Hungary
2.9% alcohol, 620 g/litre residual sugar. Remarkable stuff, fermented and aged in glass jars for seven years, and not technically wine because the alcohol level is too low. And it takes three years to ferment this far because of the incredibly high sugar level, creating a highly hostile environment for yeasts to work in. I tasted it from the special crystal Essencia spoon that comes with each bottle. It’s amazingly intense, fresh and spicy with lovely acidity countering the wall of sweetness. Super-sweet yet complex with notes of apricot, spice and herbs. Eternal finish. This is remarkable stuff, and it’s almost impossible to rate it with a numerical score, so I won’t try. (£313.15 for a half bottle, Berry Bros)

see my full write up of the Royal Tokaji wines here.