Château d'Yquem 2019

Critic scores

• Vinous98
• Wine Spectator97
• James Suckling96
• Wine Advocate93

The 2019 vintage in Sauternes

Vintage benchmark: 90/100 (appellation benchmark, not a score for this wine)

Vintage character: A warm, dry autumn gave rich wines, sometimes overly sun-drenched, where freshness is hard to find.

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

Very balanced, the Yquem 2019 vintage is all about freshness and concentration. The high proportion of Sauvignon brings a floral and lemony touch of verbena. This vintage is extremely seductive in its youth and will travel magnificently over time.

Blend of the 2019 vintage

Figures from the 2019 sheet

• 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.