Château d'Yquem 2003

The 2003 vintage in Sauternes

Vintage benchmark: 88/100 (appellation benchmark, not a score for this wine)

Vintage character: The heatwave kept botrytis from taking hold: wines candied by passerillage, rich and powerful rather than roasted.

Overall reading of the year’s season across Sauternes. An estate can depart from it sharply, in frost or hail years, where two neighbours did not make the same vintage. What this particular wine actually gave is on its technical sheet and in the scores above.

Tasting

The color is already a very clear yellow. The intense nose of fresh fruit: pineapple, passion fruit, mango is accompanied by very pleasant floral notes (rose, acacia flower) as well as light vanilla notes. On the palate, the wine is very expressive: It has a very nice volume, substance and above all a perfect balance of alcohol/sugars/acidity. The whole thing is extremely elegant and lively. The complexity, blend and length that this wine will acquire during ageing will impress more than one person.

Blend of the 2003 vintage

Figures from the 2003 sheet

• 14 % vol.Alcohol
• 9 hl/haYield
• 28 yrsVine age
• 100,000 bottlesProduction

Winemaking

Fermentation takes place in barrels in order to promote the perfect conduct of this phase, the most delicate and mysterious of wine production.

Ageing

30 months in barrels

Food pairings

foie gras, oysters and other seafood. Fish in white sauce such as sole or turbot. Perfect with hard cheeses.

Terroir

Here, in a rare alchemy, all the favourable elements of the Sauternais come together. The soils, warm and quick-drying at the surface, benefit from the heat stored by the large gravel stones. They also hold good water reserves owing to the clay nature of their lower layers. Many springs indeed come to the surface, and the control of the soil's water regime long ago prompted the installation of drainage. The great extent of Yquem has made it possible to plant the vineyard across a very wide range of the geological mosaic of the Sauternais. The extraordinary variety of soils that results is a fundamental element in the final complexity of the wine of Yquem.