Chateau Guiraud Sauternes 2001
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Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
"Golden yellow. Butterscotch and vanilla, with hints of ripe apples. Full-bodied, with lots of sweetness and a spicy apricot and honey aftertaste. Excellent concentration and balance. Loads of botrytis character on the finish. Intense. Hard not to drink now because it's so luscious and rich. Best after 2008." -Wine Spectator
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
Golden yellow. Butterscotch and vanilla, with hints of ripe apples. Full-bodied, with lots of sweetness and a spicy apricot and honey aftertaste. Excellent concentration and balance. Loads of botrytis character on the finish. Intense. Hard not to drink now because it's so luscious and rich. Best after 2008.
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James Suckling
Intensely fruity and rich with wonderful sweetness and loads of spicy and honey character with a dried apricot undertone. It hasn’t changed much since I last tasted it, just bottled. Great 2001. Drink or hold.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The Guiraud 2001 here did not quite deliver as it had done at the vertical tasting a couple of years previously. However, it still boasts an attractive, quite forward orange peel, lanolin and apricot-scented bouquet that is certainly well defined. Like before, just give it a few swirls and that peachy nose unfurls. The palate is well balanced but I find it here just a little pinched on the entry. The finish is linear but full of citrus fruit and bitter orange to savor. I was just expecting more persistence but otherwise this is very fine.
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Throughout its history, Chateau Guiraud, Premier Grand Cru Classé in 1855, has always been proud of its independence and has always followed its own path. This domain, with its 128 hectares situated exclusively around the village of Sauternes and its unique combination of grape varieties, is one of the rare properties in France to have created its own conservatory of vine stock varieties.
In 1996, ever faithful to its pioneering spirit, the vineyard underwent a cultural revolution under the impulse of Xavier Planty, who was at the time manager of Chateau Guiraud, which prohibits the use of all synthetic products. In 2011 Chateau Guiraud became the first Premier Grand Cru Classé in 1855 to be awarded Agriculture Biologique (AB) certification.
The philosophy at Chateau Guiraud is guided by constant questioning and their desire to let nature take its course, thus allowing the vines to achieve their full potential.
Apart from the classics, we find many regional gems of different styles.
Late harvest wines are probably the easiest to understand. Grapes are picked so late that the sugars build up and residual sugar remains after the fermentation process. Ice wine, a style founded in Germany and there referred to as eiswein, is an extreme late harvest wine, produced from grapes frozen on the vine, and pressed while still frozen, resulting in a higher concentration of sugar. It is becoming a specialty of Canada as well, where it takes on the English name of ice wine.
Vin Santo, literally “holy wine,” is a Tuscan sweet wine made from drying the local white grapes Trebbiano Toscano and Malvasia in the winery and not pressing until somewhere between November and March.
Rutherglen is an historic wine region in northeast Victoria, Australia, famous for its fortified Topaque and Muscat with complex tawny characteristics.
Sweet and unctuous but delightfully charming, the finest Sauternes typically express flavors of exotic dried tropical fruit, candied apricot, dried citrus peel, honey or ginger and a zesty beam of acidity.
Sémillon, Sauvignon Blanc, Sauvignon Gris and Muscadelle are the grapes of Sauternes. But Sémillon's susceptibility to the requisite noble rot makes it the main variety and contributor to what makes Sauternes so unique. As a result, most Sauternes estates are planted to about 80% Sémillon. Sauvignon is prized for its balancing acidity and Muscadelle adds aromatic complexity to the blend with Sémillon.
Botrytis cinerea or “noble rot” is a fungus that grows on grapes only in specific conditions and its onset is crucial to the development of the most stunning of sweet wines.
In the fall, evening mists develop along the Garonne River, and settle into the small Sauternes district, creeping into the vineyards and sitting low until late morning. The next day, the sun has a chance to burn the moisture away, drying the grapes and concentrating their sugars and phenolic qualities. What distinguishes a fine Sauternes from a normal one is the producer’s willingness to wait and tend to the delicate botrytis-infected grapes through the end of the season.