1995 Tokaji Aszú 5 Puttonyos

This historic property was revived by Jean-Michel Cazes, Daniel Llose, and their AXA team in 1992. The splendid winemaking facilities are familiar to most enophiles from the glossy pages of wine magazines. There are 200 acres between Tarcal and Mad most of that in a single south-facing slope. This is a breezy location where grape skins are stressed to aromatic complexity, but humidity is enhanced by a tiny tributary of the Tisza that runs past the property and on through the vineyards of Mad Around 130 acres of old vines are being retained and a slightly smaller acreage has been replanted. Seventeen acres are planted with oremus, an earlier-ripening crossing between bouvier and furmint approved in 1994. There is scarcely any muscat. The team here, including director Dominique Arangoits, cellarmaster Janos Arvay and enologist Stephanie Berecz, favor whole-cluster pressing and utilize French oak barrels which spent the first year servicing crus in their homeland. This is the only Tokaji property to have dug new cellars, as they found them superior to the hundreds of available miles of old ones where, as the saying goes, "you must bow before the wine."