Welcome to our Bordeaux En Primeur 2012 Blog - Sauternes Saturday
Arrived in Bordeaux on the red eye from Luton, having set off at 1.30am from Yorkshire. Collected the car, well if you can call it that, and started with a tasting of 24 bottles of 2003 Sauternes and Barsac which was a really useful tasting. The verdict is the wines are showing well, still good acidity and some are still very youthful. Plenty of lemon marmalade, and bucket loads of sweet, ripe fruit. Some wines were a bit disjointed where the grapes got a bit too much heat on the vines but the tasting was very enjoyable. Favs were- Climens was top followed by Suduiraut, Guiraud, La Tour Blanche (sweetest) and Laflaurie Peyraguey.
Overall there are some very charming wines however with D'Yquem, Reuissac, Suduiraut, Fargues, Raymond Lafon and Chateau D'Arce not going to release it is going to be a difficult vintage for Sauternes. These are all properties that are on the southern ridge with a couple of exceptions but it was all down to the terroir and properties with dry terroir have suffered the most. The basic problem started with un-even flowering and a drought in August/ Sept and it then became a race as to who could get to the botrytis stage before the next rain. It is thought that Climens (tasting on Friday as they don't give out samples) seems to have done the best. Properties like Guiraud only produced 24 barrels from 92 hectares and La Tour Blanche also only had 24 barrells from 37 hectares. Ch de Fargues only made 10 barrels and haven't decided yet if they are going to release however they would loose 3 barrels in samples so they have decided to withdraw from the 2012 tastings.
My favourites yesterday where Ch de Veyres and Broustel ( Fargues), Liot (very close to Climens), Doisy Daene, Doisy-Vedrines, Myrat, Coutet, Rabaud-Promis and Rayne Vigneau.
A long day - finished off with sausages (happy Yorkshireman) and some great wine at Chez Bill Blatch on Saturday night - our generous host had brought a few bottles from his cellar. Leoville Poyferre 89 was my wine of the night, closely followed by the Haut Brion 2001 and the Angelus 90.
