Château d'Yquem 1er Cru Supérieur Sauternes 2017

Admired in the whole world since the 18th century, Château d'Yquem remains the greatest of the great sweet Bordeaux wines.

Centuries after centuries, the Château has always kept faithful to an ideal of perfection, even at the darkest hours of the 20th century when people came to a disaffection for this kind of wine. In 1999, people feared that this constant solidity would collapse due to divisions in the Lur Saluces' family and the sale of the Alexandre de Lur Saluces's shares to the luxury group LVMH, but it did not. Today, the tandem Alexandre de Lur Saluces - Bernard Arnault seems to work wonderfully and the working methods have not been called into question.

Yquem remains the Bordeaux symbol of perfection and tradition. Exceptional fact in Bordeaux, the wine stays in general three years and a half in new wood barrels for maturing, before being proposed on the market. Its refinement, the exquisite perfection of its balance and its power do not have an equivalent. The great vintages (1937, 1950, 1995…) offer the plenitude whose any wine amateur dreams of.

The great sweet wines of Bordeaux, Sauternes, are among the most decadent, complex and simply enjoyable wines. Based on a blend of Semillon and Sauvignon Blanc that has been infected with the "noble rot", Botrytis Cinerea, Sauternes are rich, honied wines bursting with notes of vanilla, coconut, dried apricots and subtle spice tones. They are usually very sweet and rich with a soft quality to them that makes them appealing in their youth, yet they can age and improve for decades.

Vintage report.
The early part of winter was cold and very dry. Warmer temperatures and rain returned in February and the weather in March led to a quick start to vegetative growth. The most significant event of spring 2017 occurred in late April when frost struck to a degree that had not been seen since 1991. Miraculously, temperatures did not go below the freezing point at Château d’Yquem, so the vines were spared an impact.

To add insult to injury, the summer of 2017 was the 4th hottest since 1897 which meant the growing season was a good month ahead of average, an advance that reached a peak on about the 20th of June. This meant records were broken again when picking began earlier than ever before, on the 16th of August, and both grape varieties managed to uniformly ripen in late August and in perfect condition. In summary, 2017 was a brilliant year with total botrytis and tremendous concentration that called for very specific sorting techniques to stay within the parameters defined by Chateau Yquem.