Top 100 wines of Sauternes - Page 3

Discover the top 100 best wines of Sauternes of Sauternes as well as the best winemakers in the region. Explore the varietals of the wines that are popular of Sauternes and the best vintages to taste in this region.

Discovering the wine region of Sauternes

Sauternes, 65 km South of Bordeaux, is a Village renowned for its high quality Sweet wines. Although some wineries produce Dry wines, they sell them under other appellations than Sauternes, which is specific to sweet wines. The village is surrounded on all sides by vineyards, the best of which produce some of the most prestigious, long-lasting and expensive dessert wines in the world. A half bottle of premium, aged Sauternes from a good Vintage can sell for over $1,000.

Classic Sauternes has a DeepGoldenColor (darker than most other dessert wines), which turns a deep amber color with bottle age. Its aromas include flower and stone fruit, with a hint of honeysuckle - the hallmark of botrytized wines. The best wines balance sweetness with acidity, concentration with freshness and power with elegance. Sauternes wines are primarily made from the Sémillon grape, which accounts for about eight out of every ten vines in the local vineyard.

Sauvignon Blanc accounts for most of the remaining vineyard and is the dominant grape in a small handful of Sauternes wines. Semillon forms a broad, well-structured base with aromas of beeswax and apricot, while Sauvignon Blanc contributes its characteristic herbal aromas and enough acidity to keep the resulting wine fresh rather than mouthwatering. These two varieties (sometimes supplemented by a small amount of Muscadelle and Sauvignon Gris) have become the preferred varieties here, not only because they are also used to make dry white Bordeaux wines, but also because of their susceptibility to a particular type of fungus, Botrytis cinerea (often just botrytis). Apart from yeast, without which the grape juice cannot ferment into wine, one would not expect a fungus to play a key role in winemaking.

Discover the grape variety: Sémillon

Sémillon blanc is a grape variety that originated in France (Bordeaux). It produces a variety of grape specially used for wine making. It is rare to find this grape to eat on our tables. Note that this grape variety can also be used for the elaboration of eaux de vie. This variety of vine is characterized by large bunches of grapes, and grapes of large size. Sémillon Blanc can be found in several vineyards: South-West, Languedoc & Roussillon, Cognac, Bordeaux, Armagnac, Provence & Corsica, Loire Valley, Rhone Valley, Savoie & Bugey, Beaujolais.

Food and wine pairing with a wine of Sauternes

wines from the region of Sauternes go well with generally quite well with dishes of fruity desserts, blue cheese or rich fish (salmon, tuna etc) such as recipes of apple cake, leek and roquefort tart or gratin dauphinois with smoked salmon.

Organoleptic analysis of wine of Sauternes

On the nose in the region of Sauternes often reveals types of flavors of tree fruit, orange blossom or toffee and sometimes also flavors of marmalade, lemon or melon. In the mouth in the region of Sauternes is a powerful with a good balance between acidity and sweetness.

News from the vineyard of Sauternes

Bordeaux 2021 harvest was 20% below 10-year average following spring frosts

The Conseil Interprofessionnel du Vin de Bordeaux (CIVB) revealed that the Bordeaux 2021 vintage was 20% below the region’s 10-year average. Bud burst came earlier than usual amid very sunny weather in March, and many young buds were then destroyed by severe frosts, which hammered the region in early April. It means that producers will have just 503 million bottles from the 2021 vintage, which is significantly below average. The region’s sweet whites, including Sauternes, suffered the sharpest y ...

Best in Show: The top 50 wines of DWWA 2022

The 0.27% of entries awarded Best in Show at this year’s Decanter World Wine Awards reflect the inspiring world of wine and quest for quality among winemakers globally, with 50 wines expressing the best of their categories. An all-time record for wines tasted at the world’s largest wine competition, it’s quite possible that Decanter World Wine Awards 2022 marks the largest-ever wine competition to be held in history. And of the record-breaking 18,244 wines tasted, just 50 were ...

Courvoisier Mizunara: the launch of a collaborative Cognac

Described by Courvoisier as ‘daring’, ‘visionary’ and ‘a first-of-its-kind collaboration’, Courvoisier Mizunara was created by the house’s recently-retired maître de chai, Patrice Pinet, and Shinji Fukuyo, chief blender of Japanese whisky maker Suntory. The project dates back to 2015, when the president of Suntory visited Courvoisier at Jarnac shortly after Suntory took over Beam Global, the Cognac house’s then owner, in a deal worth US$16bn. Pinet expressed an interest in experimenting with miz ...

Top wines in regions and sub-regions of Sauternes