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Hi, everyone.

In 1703, Ferenc Rákóczi, Prince of Transylvania, gave Louis XIV of France a gift of wines made on his Tokaj estate. So delighted was Louis that he promoted the sweet, golden yellow wine at Versailles as the Wine of Kings and the King of Wines.

It soon became the favorite of Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, Frederic II of Prussia, Voltaire, Goethe and Schubert. There was a group of Cossacks whose entire mission was to make sure these wines reached the Tsars of Russia unimpeded.

Aszú wines were first mentioned in known recorded documents in 1571. But despite their long history and periodic dominance among the royal and famous, few Americans have ever heard of Hungarian Tokaji, which the French pronounce Toe-Kay. Like Sauternes, Tokaji is made with botrytised grapes that have been allowed to become infected with a fungus called botrytis cinerea or "noble rot."

We mention all this because we just took delivery Thursday of two truly delightful Hungarian dessert wines, the Tokaj-Hêtszólô, Szólóbitok Takaji-Aszú 6 Puttonyos, and the Tokaji Furmint Late Harvest Zoltan Demeter 2001. (Say that three times fast.)

We've already had two Tokaji Aszu wines on our list and they've met with nearly universal approval from dessert wine lovers. As a rule Aszú wines are golden with a fine, fruity fragrance redolent of peach peels and hay, and a long, silky aftertaste of peaches, apricot and walnuts. We suspect we're going to end up with a small collection of these lovely Hungarian wines, because, as Paul says, "Dollar for dollar compared to other dessert wines, there's not much I'd rather have. At four times the price there are some Alsatian wines that are this good, but to tell you the truth, I'd rather have these wines than most Sauternes."

Aszú, which is the Hungarian word for botrytis, is the wine that made Hungary famous. The wines are rated in concentration from 3 to 6 Puttonyos.

A Putton is a vat used to hold the shriveled, botrytised grapes (Furmint mostly, with bits of Hárslevelú and Muscat Lunel) for six to eight days after harvest. The drizzle of juice that is squeezed out naturally by the weight of the grapes on each other is used to make the rare and expensive Aszú Eszencia, which requires about 50 pounds of grapes for each four ounces. Over a period of years, this wine becomes so thick and sweet that its alcohol level seldom exceeds 2 percent. They have to use a special yeast to make it ferment at all. It is thought to have powers so restorative that for a time it was reserved solely for the consumption of dying monarchs.

The remaining grapes are kneaded into a paste, placed in 55-gallon baskets called Puttonyos and added to a grape must made from uninfected grapes. The more Puttonyos of Aszú added to a 37-gallon vat called a gönci, the more concentrated and valuable the final wine becomes. The previous Aszú wines we've been able to offer have been five Puttonyos. Our new one is an extremely rare six Puttonyos.

The second Hungarian wine we bought this week is made from hand-picked furmint grapes that have been aged in steel tanks and wooden barrels. Lighter and paler than the intense golden Aszú, Zoltan Demeter Late Harvest Furmint is smooth, clean and balanced with a fresh acidity, complex fruit and a honeyed finish that lingers lovingly on the palate. Demeter is a young and talented winemaker who studied winemaking in France and England under the sponsorship of the Wine and Spirit Education Trust. This is an extremely hard-to-get and rare wine.

Its rarity makes it even more lovely that the distributor, Peloneda Imports, has generously agreed to set aside a part of the precious United States allocation of the Demeter's Furmint to serve as the finale for the James Beard Foundation dinner Paul has been invited to cook on October 25 in New York City. http://www.jamesbeard.org/

For a nice chart explaining the making of Hungarian wines, visit http://www.tokaji.hu/en-borkeszites.html

Paul is expecting a shipment of bluefoot and morel mushrooms this weekend, which he plans to use to make a special sauce for veal chop.

A bluefoot is the cultivated form of the Blewitt mushroom, with larger, denser flesh than its wild cousin. Blewitts are found alone or in small clusters near leaves, pine duff, compost piles, old wood chips or sawdust, and on lawns under pine trees. Morels are conical, hive-like mushrooms found in moist areas, around dying or dead Elm, Sycamore and Ash trees, and in old apple orchards.

By the way, a sense of accuracy and self preservation leads us to refer to farmed mushrooms as "exotic" rather than "wild." The governmental powers frown upon the use of true wild mushrooms by restaurants because they tend not to trust the chefs of most establishments to be able to tell a chanterelle from a shoe.

For pictures and mushroom trivia, visit http://www.morelmushroomhunting.com/
http://www.bright.net/~wildwood/ http://www.famie.com/bluefoot.htm http://www.mushroomcompany.com/books/loverscookbook.html (This last link is about The Mushroom Lover's Mushroom Cookbook and Primer by Amy Farges of Aux Delices Des Bois. She and her husband Thierry kindly lent Paul and Cheryl their cabin in Chichester Christmas before last when our family outgrew our relatives' nearby weekend house.)

We'll also be making fresh strawberry rhubarb compote and squab during the next week and featuring a firm, tasty goat cheese from Holland called Twenny, as well as organic Pont-Leveque.

Our Pink Plate Special will be Paupiettes de veau or veal puppets. These are rolls of veal that are pounded thin and filled with asparagus and raclette cheese before baking.

There is one spot left in the cooking class that Paul will be giving at 11 a.m. this Sunday. (The May and June classes are sold out.) Sunday's class will focus on knife techniques. The "students" will prepare a meal together under Paul's instruction and then sit down to enjoy the fruits of their labors with a bit of wine. The price is $120 and class size is limited to 12 people.

A reminder to those thinking ahead: Skidmore Graduation weekend is May 21 and 22nd. In order to make dinner as relaxed as possible for the large family groups that are booking that weekend, we will forgo our normal à la carte menu and offer a prix fixe menu. The same number of choices as we normally have will be available, and the price is $55 per person, including appetizer, soup or salad, entrée, dessert or a cheese course and coffee or espresso.

Paul has agreed to do two cooking demonstration on Sunday, May 30, at 1:30 and 3:30 p.m. at the Saratoga Racecourse during the Saratoga Dressage Show to benefit the American Association for Retired Persons Road Show.

Notes on Nicholas: We took Nicholas Sunday to New York City to visit his Uncle Mack, Aunt Ellen and Cousin Annarose and decided to stay Monday long enough to take our young hero to the Central Park Zoo. Once he got the hang of looking at animals behind glass, he seemed particularly fascinated by the polar bears and the monkeys. But no matter what exotic animal was there, he was most enthralled by all the other small children at the zoo. In the children's zoo, he stopped at one of the big brass acorn sculptures and petted it and climbed on it and hugged it until we had to haul him away to see what WE thought was the really interesting stuff. We put 50 cents into the vending machine to get a handful of pellets for him to feed the sheep and llamas, but we found out that Nico was more interested in eating it himself than giving it away. Then he careened off after a pretty two-year-old, scaring her behind her father's trousers. Nonplussed, Nico found another big brass acorn and threw himself upon it in a passionate embrace.

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Hope To See You Soon!
Paul, Cheryl & Joseph
at chez sophie bistro
518-583-3538

Chez Sophie was founded in 1969 by sculptor Joseph Parker and his French-born wife, the late Sophie. The business moved to a vintage stainless steel diner in Malta Ridge, New York, in 1995, and is open year-round for dinner. It is owned today by Sophie and Joseph's son, Paul Parker, and his wife, Cheryl Clark.

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