Currently the only dessert wine on our wine list at Oxheart
is Tokaji. Recently, I was pouring a guest a glass of Tokaji, and they looked
up at me and asked, “So you like Tokaji? How would you describe the taste?”
I paused for a very, very long time. And I think my actual
answer was “Yes, I like it.” I ignored the second question, which I wanted to
answer very badly.
Here is what I wanted to say, but didn’t have time to fully
articulate:
What does Tokaji taste like? It tastes like a late harvest
white wine and a tawny port got together. Perfectly ripened peaches and
nectarines, caramel, burnt sugar, vanilla and honey. It’s nice.
Tokaji is complex. It is made primarily from the Furmint
grape, in Hungary. It is made by masterminds who could be building spaceships or curing
cancer. Instead they make something much more important: one of the best wines
in the whole damn world. It is a perfectly executed and timed series of kicks to
guide your subconscious mind through ten layers of dream worlds so that it
might explode into full consciousness. It is the fourth unsolved panel of the
Cryptos statue at the CIA headquarters in Langley. Tokaji is a mystery, wrapped
in a riddle, deep-fried in suspense.
Tokaji is balanced. It is perfectly balanced on the edge of
a razor. Not only is it unctuously sweet, but it has laserlike acid to level
out all that delicious sugar. It is balanced like the madness and evil that
drive the human condition are counterbalanced against the joy of a meaningful
life with people you care about. Somewhere in the world an orphan is adopted into
a loving family, while a mercenary wipes blood off a well-worn machete
elsewhere. So too is Tokaji balanced.
Tokaji is intense. How intense? Imagine staring into the
sun. You stare at it for hours. You’re blind. You’re sweating. And you can’t
look away, because it’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen. Then the sun
blows up. The entire solar system is engulfed in white-hot fire. Everything
that you thought mattered: your car payments, your herb garden outside your
apartment, your pet- they’re gone. Reduced to elemental carbon. You float
through outer space for a billion years. Later, the atoms that made you form
another planet, in a different solar system in a different galaxy. That
hypothetical experience is almost as intense and profound as the flavor of
Tokaji.
Tokaji is historically significant. Tokaji beat other sweet
wines to the punch on the delicious possibilities created by Botyrtis. The
vineyards were the first to ever be formally demarcated, round about 1700.
Catherine the Great regularly employed military force to obtain and protect
obscene amounts of it. The Czars got drunk as hell on it. Thomas Jefferson
poured it up all throughout his career, and died penniless in the pursuit of
more Tokaji, amongst other wines.
I like Tokaji a lot. How much do I like it? I will make you this
promise: if for some ridiculous reason I am elected president of the United
States, I will plunge America into the greatest depression it has ever seen and
declare war on everyone in pursuit of more Tokaji. I will spend every red US
cent that I have legal authority over to obtain every bottle in existence. I
will invade Hungary. As the A-10 Warthogs scream overhead and the M1 Abrams
tanks roll through the streets of Budapest, I will land Marine Force One in the
center of Mézes Mály, the great first growth of Tokaji. I will be like, “Sorry,
this belongs to America now.” I will draft every man, woman, and child into
military service to achieve this insane and wasteful goal of seizing the
vineyards of Tokaji. If elected, I will probably not remain president very
long. I like to think Catherine and TJ would approve.
When I taste Tokaji, I feel like my mind is being torn apart
by a truth that I am not ready to comprehend. Tokaji is the reason the world
turns, and it is the reason I get up in the morning. It is an ancient battlesong
that gives me the strength to fight another day when my body is broken and my
resolve has been tested too thoroughly.
I would highly recommend you try it. It is one of the most
fascinating beverages on the planet, and it is readily available by the glass at Oxheart.
Since this is the first time I have ever mentioned my
current job in blog form, I should probably just go ahead and say that in case
you are offended or weirded out, these opinions are exclusively mine.
