Château d'Yquem 2007

Critic scores

• Wine Advocate98
• Vinous95

The 2007 vintage in Sauternes

Vintage benchmark: 96/100 (appellation benchmark, not a score for this wine)

Vintage character: A divine autumn for botrytis gave the great vintage of the sweet wines: precise, complex, of rare freshness.

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. The nose is of great aromatic purity, marked by notes of very intense exotic fruits. Passion fruit and pineapple follow grapefruit and apricot. The contribution of ageing in wood underlines the extremely generous character of this great Yquem vintage. The palate is in total agreement with the olfactory impression. In this distinguished wine there is a perfect balance between sweetness, acidity and alcohol, offering the palate a very seductive feeling of harmony. The roasted notes so dear to our taste buds are of incredible quality here, reminding us that this 2007 vintage is a GREAT Botrytis vintage!

Blend of the 2007 vintage

Figures from the 2007 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.