Published by Jeremy. Last Updated on November 4, 2026.
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Never in my wildest dreams have I thought I would find a Tokaji Esszencia available for a glass pour at a reasonable price. Even more so, I never would’ve expected it to actually happen in my own city of Pittsburgh.
But at the new Hungarian restaurant, Titusz (which is incredible by the way), we got just that not once, but twice!
So for our second go around with a one ounce pour of this sweet, sweet nectar, we got a chance to sample Chateau Pajzos Esszencia 1999 and, like the Vinarium Hungaricum Tokaj Eszencia 1993 we tried a few months prior, this one is a rare treat we certainly are not going to take for granted.
Chateau Pajzos Esszencia Hits All The Right Notes
This Tokaji Esszencia was deep tawny in color with medium(+) aromas of fig, date, orange marmalade, menthol (that went away after decanting a bit), candied orange peel, peanut, almond, rose, molasses, and toffee.
On the palate, it was luscious with high acidity, low alcohol, full body, pronounced flavor intensity, and a long finish. We had notes of dried figs, date, orange peel, orange marmalade, golden raisin, and rose to name a few.
Esszencia Food Pairing – Kremes Cake with Blueberry
We paired this beautiful Tokaji Esszencia with a dessert of a Kremes Cake (cream cake) with vanilla custard and a berry sauce. We will note that there were admittedly other desserts that we thought would be better pairings than this one on the restaurant’s menu; however, due to my wife’s allergy we had to skip those and went with our trusty fallback dessert. (We previously paired this one with a Schreube Beerenauslese that was perhaps a better pairing overall, but, hey, when there is Esszencia you get Esszencia).
What was interesting with this particular pairing was not so much a flavor that popped out in the Esszencia itself (the flavors noted above held remarkably well), but rather that the blueberry notes spiked prominently with each sip. We always love it when wine highlights the food, and this one did just that.
Score: 5 / 5
We want several bottles of this one.
For our second-ever Esszencia, we had the same reaction as the first- wow! Words escape you when drinking this one, and quite honestly we could’ve kept going with flavor descriptors here as it is just that good. But, as with all wines of this style, there comes a price to match, but we’d still gladly put a few bottles in our cellar to age if we could afford it.
But, alas, trying it by the ounce is perhaps the next best thing.
Chateau Pajzos is located at 3950 Sárospatak, Nagy Lajos út 23-25 in Hungary. We had a glass of this locally in 2026.
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