Château d'Yquem 2009

Critic scores

• Wine Advocate100
• James Suckling99-100
• Wine Enthusiast99
• Vinous97

The 2009 vintage in Sauternes

Vintage benchmark: 97/100 (appellation benchmark, not a score for this wine)

Vintage character: An ideal autumn after a hot summer gave opulent, complex sweet wines, capable of holding for several decades.

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 nose still very expansive. It is marked by fruits (apricot, mandarin, sometimes exotic fruits) and woody notes (vanilla, toasted bread). On the palate, the first sensation is always very silky, often sumptuous. It is followed by a more enveloping impression. Balanced between liquor and acidity (between sweetness and freshness). A few touches of bitterness can contribute to this harmony.

Blend of the 2009 vintage

Figures from the 2009 sheet

• 14 % vol.Alcohol
• 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

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.