Château d'Yquem 2006

Critic scores

• Wine Advocate98
• Wine Enthusiast95
• Vinous94

The 2006 vintage in Sauternes

Vintage benchmark: 91/100 (appellation benchmark, not a score for this wine)

Vintage character: A rainy September called for selective picking passes: balanced, clean wines, without excess liqueur.

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

Beautiful golden yellow color. Reserved nose but in which we clearly perceive the notes of apricot, peach and coconut. Creamy nose. On the palate, the attack is round, full of volume, with a lively evolution, then very rich. Very nice structure for this wine, great hold and good length. Let us remember that 2006 was not an easy vintage. But at the cost of rigorous selection, both in the vineyard and in the cellar, this wine was able to make the most of the Yquem terroirs.

Blend of the 2006 vintage

Figures from the 2006 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.