Chateau d'Yquem Sauternes (375ML Futures Pre-Sale) 2010
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Robert
Parker -
Wine
Enthusiast -
James
Suckling -
Wine
Spectator
Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
Discovering Chateau d'Yquem starts with the bouquet. Although not always very outgoing in young vintages, it is marked by fruit (apricot, mandarin, and occasionally tropical fruit) and oak (vanilla and toasty aromas). Older vintages, on the other hand, have an extraordinarily complex fragrance as soon as the bottle is opened.
The bouquet is amazingly subtle, with hints of dried fruit (dried apricot, prune, stewed fruit, and marmalade), spice (cinnamon, saffron, and licorice), and even flowers (linden blossom, etc.).
The first impression on the palate is always very silky, and often sumptuous. It then fills out, "coating the palate." This fine wine has a strong, but never overbearing character, with great elegance and poise. It always maintains a balance between sugar and acidity (sweetness and freshness).
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Pale to medium lemon-gold color, the 2010 d'Yquem has retreated into its shell at this youthful stage, offering spritely suggestions of lemon curd, lime cordial and green mango with wafts of honeysuckle, spice cake, sea spray and beeswax plus a hint of gingerbread. The palate really comes through with super intense, tightly wound citrus, savory and mineral layers carried by a laser-precise backbone of freshness, finishing with crazy persistence that lingers a full three minutes and then some. This is going to be a very exotic, opulent Yquem!
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Wine Enthusiast
Impressively balanced, with the fruit rich, intense with a golden glow. The acidity is as important as the freshness, giving a delicious lift to the core of dry, concentrated botrytis. Obviously a great wine for long-term aging in a great Sauternes year.
Barrel Sample: 96-98 Points -
James Suckling
The purity of Botrytis in this wine is so impressive with dried fruits such apple and mango. And then spicy character. Full body and very sweet but it is incredibly fresh and lively. Such class and elegance. Perfectly manicured wine. Everything in the right place. This shows a delicacy and intensity that are spellbinding.
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Wine Spectator
Tropical and inviting, with lush mango, fig and papaya aromas followed by pineapple and creamed banana. The long tangerine finish is flattering and very open now, but the length is clearly there.
Barrel Sample: 93-96 Points
Château d’Yquem is an extraordinary place, at the very heart of Sauternes, with a hundred hectares of vineyards are planted on a mosaic of different soils. All the conditions are there to grow exceptional grapes and achieve the finest noble rot, the famous botrytis cinerea.
Through a sublimation process, the grapes reach a level a richness in taste and aromas that is simply unique in the world. Yquem preciously protects its selective harvesting secret, carried out by a team of devoted highly experienced local pickers, who have received their ancestral knowledge from the generations that came before them. Therefore, only the best grapes sublimated by botrytis cinerea are picked, because this is the golden rule at Yquem: never look for simplification, or shortcuts, and accept the risk of losing everything.
This is the price to pay to achieve excellence.