This short week has been dominated by politics and sweet wines. Most Sauternes and Barsac estates have now released with just a few big names such as Yquem, Climens and de Fargues still to come. This is an exceptional vintage with both quantity and quality. In fact most producers have never witnessed such a straightforward harvest. Rather than the usual headache of multiple trie spaced weeks apart, wine-makers enjoyed a uniform transformation in their vineyards as botrytis spread and concentrated sugars in the grapes. Countless estates told the same story; all grapes harvested in a single week, large yields (comparatively) and exceptional quality. Residual sugar levels are high, but these are balanced, fresh, complex, mineral, really engaging wines that are close in quality to the 2001s.The star releases include Suduiraut (97-99), Rieussec (95-97) and Coutet (96-98). All scores are taken from The Wine Advocate issue 188. We were also particularly impressed with Doisy Vedrines, which, at £245 per case looks tremendous value.
As with the Left Bank and the Right Bank, we asked our tasting team to list their top five Sauternes/Barsac. Unsurprisingly, Yquem and Climens run out as clear winners, but there were strong showings from Rieussec, Doisy Vedrines, de Fargues and Coutet. Our results can be found below (in order of preference):
Yquem
Climens
Rieussec
Doisy Vedrines
De Fargues
Coutet
Doisy Daene
Suduiraut
Rayne Vigneau
