Château d'Yquem 2022

Critic scores

• James Suckling100
• Wine Advocate98
• Vinous98
• Wine Spectator97

The 2022 vintage in Sauternes

Vintage benchmark: 89/100 (appellation benchmark, not a score for this wine)

Vintage character: Drought all but ruled out botrytis: wines candied by passerillage more than truly 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 fruit of an extraordinary sun-drenched vintage, Château d’Yquem 2022 stands out with its solid and powerful structure. From the first moments of tasting, it is distinguished by the intensity of its roasted notes, like a seal that high-quality noble rot has firmly placed on it. These notes are reminiscent of candied pear and lemon, as well as orange marmalade. From this base of fruits emanate scents of delicate linden and frangipani flowers, enhanced by the sweetness of freshly blooming lily of the valley. The almond and delicious nose already suggests a great richness on the palate. With its lively attack and aromas of candied fruits, Château d’Yquem 2022 is resolutely reminiscent of apricot jam. Dense and creamy, it coats the palate revealing its notes of beeswax, caramel and quince paste. Its powdery texture continues with salinity and beautiful bitterness on the finish, which supports the expression of candied bitter orange so characteristic of Yquem wines.

Blend of the 2022 vintage

Figures from the 2022 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

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.