Sauternes: Bordeaux’s sweet wine

Sauternes is a small area forty kilometres south of Bordeaux on the Garonne's left bank. Five villages belong to the appellation: Sauternes, Bommes, Fargues, Preignac and Barsac. Barsac also has its own appellation; its wines may use either name.

The small Ciron river is crucial. Cold water from the Landes forests meets the warmer Garonne, producing mist over the vines on autumn mornings. Sunshine follows during the day. Morning damp and daytime warmth are ideal for noble rot.

Botrytis cinerea usually damages grapes as grey rot. In this particular climate it behaves differently: it punctures berry skins, allowing water to evaporate and concentrating sugar, acids and aromas. The berry shrivels like a raisin with a brown coating.

It develops unevenly: one bunch can hold ready and healthy berries. Pickers therefore pass several times, up to ten in some years, taking only ready berries or sections of bunches. This selective picking is called a trie.

Some years botrytis never arrives, or rain ruins the harvest. The best châteaux then make no wine at all.

Young Sauternes offers apricot, peach, honey, citrus peel, oak vanilla and characteristic botrytis notes of saffron and ginger. With age, its colour deepens to amber and flavours become caramel, dried fruit, orange marmalade and tea. Good acidity prevents cloying sweetness.

Alcohol is usually 13–14%, with over 100 grams of sugar per litre.

For the Paris Universal Exhibition in 1855, Bordeaux's finest châteaux were listed. Alongside Médoc reds were the sweet wines of Sauternes and Barsac.

The list has barely changed since the 19th century, and excellent estates also exist outside it.

Château d'Yquem is a sweet-wine legend. One vine is said to yield about one glass. It makes no wine in poor years. LVMH has owned it since 1999. Yquem can live over a century; 19th-century bottles are still drunk at special tastings.

Bottles cost hundreds of euros, old vintages thousands. Visits require appointments; check the estate's website for times and prices.

Avoid chocolate, whose cocoa bitterness clashes, and very sweet desserts, which make the wine seem acidic.

Read more in “French Cheeses”.

• Temperature: 8–10 °C; older bottles slightly warmer, 10–12 °C.

• Glass: a small white-wine glass, poured sparingly.
• Opened bottle: a week or longer in the fridge, since sugar protects the wine.
• Half-bottles, 0.375 l: convenient, enough for six with dessert.

• Loupiac, Cadillac and Sainte-Croix-du-Mont, across the Garonne, simpler and cheaper.

• Monbazillac, Dordogne, the same principle and grapes.
• Vouvray, Coteaux du Layon and Quarts de Chaume, Loire Chenin Blanc sweet wines.
• Vendanges Tardives and Sélection de Grains Nobles, Alsace.
• Jurançon, South-West, from late-picked grapes.

1. Autumn, September–November: grapes ripen and await botrytis. Growers watch for misty mornings and sunny days.
2. Tries: repeated passes, sometimes ten, cutting only botrytised, shrivelled berries with scissors, sometimes individually. Harvest can last two months.
3. Pressing: berries contain little juice and require long, strong pressing. One vine yields very little must, about a glass at the best estates.
4. Fermentation: yeasts work slowly for weeks in very sweet must. They stop when alcohol reaches 13–14%, leaving residual sugar.
5. Ageing: usually eighteen to thirty months in oak, often new at the best estates.
6. Selection: only the finest barrels carry the château's main label; others become second wine or are sold.

This makes Sauternes one of the world's most expensive wines to produce: low yields, manual labour and the risk of losing everything to one rainfall.

Weather affects Sauternes more than dry wine. In good years botrytis arrives early and evenly, producing rich, complex wines. Rainy years can bring harmful grey rot and little or no wine from top estates. Critics often cite 2001, 2009, 2015 and 1990 among outstanding recent vintages. A good producer nevertheless makes worthwhile wine almost every year.

Sweet wines were long seen as “grandmother's wine” and sales fell. Estates responded with dry whites from Sémillon and Sauvignon, labelled Bordeaux Blanc, and lighter, fresher Sauternes for cocktails and aperitifs. A fashionable way to drink young Sauternes is over ice with orange, or lengthened with tonic. Purists wince, but it works with simple wines.

• Journey: forty minutes south from Bordeaux by car along the Garonne.

• Village: small, with Maison du Sauternes selling many estates' wines at producer prices.
• Châteaux: many welcome appointments for vineyard and cellar visits and two or three vintages, usually €15–40 per person, more at Yquem.
• Lunch: village restaurants serve foie gras and local dishes with Sauternes.
• Combine with: Graves dry whites and reds twenty minutes away, and nearby medieval Château de Roquetaillade.

October is best for seeing selective harvesting and shrivelled berries. Spring and summer have beautiful vines but no botrytis yet.

Store bottles horizontally, in darkness, at 12–14 °C. Drink young Sauternes within five years for fruit; real complexity comes after fifteen to twenty. If given a good château's bottle, do not rush to open it.

Bordeaux's sweet wines were prized before classification. In 1787, Thomas Jefferson, then ambassador to France and later US president, ordered Yquem for himself and George Washington. In the 19th century European courts drank it; according to a famous story, Russian grand duke Konstantin Nikolayevich paid an enormous sum for a barrel of 1847 Yquem. Russian buyers became important clients, helping establish the 19th-century Russian fashion for sweet wines.

Beyond Yquem, connoisseurs love estates costing far less:

• Château Climens, Barsac's “lord”, fresh, elegant, high in acidity, biodynamic.

• Château Coutet, also Barsac, with a 13th-century tower.
• Château Suduiraut, Yquem's neighbour, rich in tropical fruit.
• Château Rieussec, powerful and honeyed, owned by the Lafite Rothschild family.
• Château Guiraud, the first First Growth certified organic.
• Château Doisy-Daëne, a Second Growth offering excellent value.

For an affordable introduction, seek second wines from famous châteaux, from younger vines and barrels not chosen for the main wine. They cost two to three times less and can be drunk earlier.

In France, Sauternes is a Christmas and New Year wine, served with foie gras at the start, as throughout the South-West. A bottle lasts the evening: a glass with foie gras, cheese and dessert. An easy way to surprise dinner guests. Read more in “New Year in France”.

In Bordeaux it is poured over foie gras during baking, added to chicken and lobster sauces and used to soak pears and peaches for dessert. A spoonful in fish cream sauce brings gentle sweetness and apricot aroma. For cocktails, use simple young Sauternes with ice, orange and mint, a light summer aperitif served on Bordeaux terraces. Keep expensive estates for the glass; cocktails lose their complexity.

Half-bottles, 0.375 l, are common. This is a matter of convenience rather than a saving for the producer: sweet wine is drunk in 50–70 ml pours, and a half-bottle is enough for six with dessert. Smaller bottles also mature faster: after ten years a half-bottle may be ready while a larger bottle remains young. A First Growth half-bottle is an excellent gift or introduction.

1. Serving warm. Unchilled, it feels heavy.
2. Pairing with chocolate.
3. Filling the glass. Pour 50–70 ml at a time.
4. Discarding an unfinished bottle. It keeps a week in the fridge.
5. Thinking it is only for dessert. It is even better with foie gras and cheese.

A Sauternes day can be added to a Bordeaux wine tour: First Growth châteaux, vineyards above the Ciron and sweet-wine tasting with foie gras. → Bordeaux wine tour · How to choose Bordeaux wine. Discover the wines on location on a Bordeaux tour.