The fine wine world got into a tremendous lather at the beginning of last month. The 2001 was being released by the château for the first time and all 120,000 bottles offered to the trade were bought within two hours, at €2,400 a case — or about £133 per bottle. A week later, a second small parcel was released at €3,360 a case. At most, there were 15,000 bottles in this second tranche, as only 135,000 were made altogether. They, too, were snapped up. Within a few days, bottles were selling to the public at about £230 excluding duty and Vat (about £270 inclusive). That was if you could get hold of any.
So what is it about Yquem? What makes grown men and women go weak at the knees and empty their bank accounts? It’s not difficult: Château d’Yquem is not only the foremost Sauternes, it is the world’s greatest sweet wine. Some people might dispute the global claim, but not many and not for long. On top of that, 2001 is an exceptional vintage. Even Pierre Lurton, Yquem’s shrewdly relaxed administrator, who described the market as “crazy, completely irrational”, concedes that 2001 is “an outstanding vintage”. Robert Parker, the American wine critic whose pronouncements have an extraordinary influence over the international fine wine market, has given it a rare perfect score. He has, in fact, awarded two previous vintages of Yquem 100 out of 100: the 1811 and 1847.
Yquem’s longevity is one of its defining features. No other Sauternes lasts as long and no other has such a track record. When the wines of Sauternes and Barsac (the sweet wines of Bordeaux) were ranked 150 years ago, Château d’Yquem was put in a class of its own: the only premier grand cru. And there it has remained.
What makes Yquem different is the perfect positioning of its vineyards (“tellement favorable”, as Lurton puts it) and a perfectionist approach to wine-making — harvesting at optimum ripeness, the most ruthless selection of grapes and long ageing in oak barrels. So rigorous is the process that the average yield from its vineyards is just nine hectolitres of wine per hectare (or 1,200 bottles per two-and-a-half acres). The average among top red Bordeaux châ teaux is nearer 40 hectolitres. On that basis, Yquem ought to be about four times as expensive as them — and it isn’t remotely that expensive.
I’m not going to say Yquem is a bargain, but it’s worth a thought when you are questioning the sanity of people who pay £270 for a bottle of wine. What may seem more of a bargain are some of the other Sauternes and sweet wines from neighbouring areas such as Sainte-Croix-du-Mont and Loupiac and, a little further away, Monbazillac on the Dordogne. They may be made with less rigour and expense than Yquem, but the best will still be the result of an alarming-looking but beneficial fungus (or botrytis) that requires painstaking work and extra expense.
Known as pourriture noble, or noble rot, it attacks very ripe grapes — in this area mainly sémillon — dehydrating them and concentrating their sugar and acidity. But it only does so in a mild, humid autumn, preferably with morning mist and afternoon warmth. Because of the way it spreads, the pickers must go out on more than one occasion — at least two or three times, but at Yquem as many as 11 times.
In the years when noble rot doesn’t appear, growers in Sauternes and the nearby areas can make sweet wine, but they won’t achieve the characteristic opulence of the great years. If they are really unlucky, they will get the wrong kind of botrytis — a rot that simply spoils the grapes.
Nobody has ever said that making wine in Sauternes is an easy life. In fact, making high-quality botrytis-affected wines isn’t easy anywhere, even if you take nature-defying shortcuts. In Australia, California and Chile, producers sometimes spray grapes with botrytis spores in the vineyard, or they may spray harvested bunches with fungal spores in the winery and then expose them to appropriate changes in humidity and temperature. Such “cheating” still requires more time, skill and financial commitment than merely picking grapes and fermenting them into dry wine. It also produces some very good wines — lacking the staying power of the great Sauternes, but seductively rich and sweet. Australia’s Riverina, where botrytised wines are made both with and without sprays depending on the weather, is a good source.
In Germany, the Loire Valley, Alsace and Tokaji in Hungary, growers of grapes such as riesling, chenin blanc, gewurztraminer, pinot gris and furmint rely on nature to deliver noble rot, which means September onwards is spent checking the weather forecasts with fingers crossed as firmly as in Sauternes. Growers in Austria’s Burgenland are more fortunate. Benevolent mists and warm temperatures arrive without fail each year around the shallow Neusiedler See lake, and with them comes noble rot.
Not all sweet wines, even the very fine ones, are, or aspire to be, made from botrytis-affected grapes, but all will be made from grapes harvested late in the season when they are high in sugar, and many are the product of grapes that have been at least partially dehydrated.
In Jurançon in southwest France, where autumns are often long, dry and sunny, the grapes for the sweet wine are left until they start to shrivel on the vine — sometimes well into December. And as in Sauternes, the pickers are sent out into the vineyards on more than one occasion to gather the grapes at their peak.
In Italy, where there is a long tradition of wines made from dried grapes, bunches for sweet red recioto della Valpolicella and for Tuscan vin santo are left to dry in drafty winery lofts, either hung up or, more often, spread out on large wooden trays. Here, they have to be checked frequently for incipient mould and any suspect bunches must be discarded. The same principles — and dedication — apply to vin de paille in France and Strohwein (or straw wine) in Austria, where grapes are laid out to dry on straw, or sometimes on reed mats.
Drying wine grapes directly in the sun, a very ancient wine-making technique, is much quicker and cheaper than the other air-drying methods and still takes place on some of the Greek and Italian islands, such as Santorini and Pantelleria, but generally gives a coarser, more obvious raisiny or caramelly result.
Eiswein (or icewine) is yet another quirky, often nail-biting way to produce sweet wine. In fact, you couldn’t make it up. In some of the coldest wine regions, notably Canada, Germany and Austria, ripe grapes — not affected by noble rot — are left on the vines until after the first frosts. Once the temperature drops to -8C, or lower, which may be January of the new year, pickers go out in the early hours of the morning to pick the frozen bunches. The grapes are then taken straight to the winery and pressed. The water from the grapes remains in crystal form in the press, while the sugar- and acid-rich juice (which has a lower freezing point than water) runs out ready to be fermented. The resulting wine is intensely concentrated and sweet, with tingling acidity. Because of the acidity, German eiswein in particular — the best is made from riesling grapes — lives to a great age.
Not all sweet wines are the result of such strange and/or laborious practices. Sweetening wines with grape concentrate is quick and cheap. Adding grape spirit part-way through fermentation when there is still sugar remaining in the must (grape pulp and liquid) is also relatively straightforward. As well as stopping the fermentation by killing the yeasts, the added spirit boosts the alcohol level, which is why Muscat de Beaumes de Venise, Muscat de Rivesaltes and other vins doux naturels are more alcoholic than other wines. Port is strong and sweet for the same reason.
A glass of sweet wine can transform a slice of everyday apple pie into something exotic, but even if you don’t eat puddings, there’s no reason to skip sweet wine. For one thing, you can serve it instead of pudding — a useful option if you happen to be cook and host and short of time.
You can also drink sweet wines at other times. In regions where they are made, they’re often much favoured as aperitifs; in Britain we’ve got into the habit of drinking dry white an an aperitif, but this is not a written rule. Then there’s the foie gras slot at the beginning of the meal: Sauternes is the perfect (and perfectly indulgent) partner for foie gras and rich liver pates. You don’t need to stop there. Sweet wines also go with blue cheeses. Roquefort is the classic, but other powerful cheeses meet their match in rich sweet wines.
Of course, there is sweet wine and then there is Château d’Yquem, the legendary Sauternes, the 2001 vintage.
Yquem - and the others
Château d’Yquem, Sauternes, 1995, £200 bottle or £100 half-bottle; 2000, £273 bottle
Supplies of Château d’Yquem are extremely limited
Domaine du Touron, Monbazillac, 1983, £12.99 a bottle
Monbazillac of this maturity is rare — even rarer to find it still so fresh. Aromas of apples and beeswax- polished oak in combination with age-defying acidity
Westend Estate Three Bridges Reserve Botrytis, 2002, £10.99 half-bottle
Australia’s answer to Sauternes — opulent and intensely sweet, with apricot, Seville orange and honey flavours and the richness offset by finely balanced acidity
Château Doisy-Védrines, Sauternes, 2002, £10.50 half-bottle
Classic young Sauternes from a fine vintage. Honeyed, floral nose with a creamy peach and apricot palate
Felsner Icon Grüner Veltliner Eiswein, 1999, £15.99 half-bottle
Sumptuously sweet and exotic Austrian Eiswein, with a nose of clotted-cream, dark chocolate and spice and flavours of lime and cardamom
Royal Tokaji Blue Label 5 Puttonyos, 2000, £14.99 50cl bottle
Golden, rich and concentrated, finishing with a spicy, zesty tang. Made, like Sauternes, from botrytised grapes
