Chateau Suduiraut Sauternes 2003
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Its superlative elegance comes from a match of total opposites: a voluptuous texture, mineral freshness and the heat of spices.
Château Suduiraut is designed for all those who enjoy sensory and emotional experiences that are both rich and full of surprises and leave a lasting memory.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
Intense aromas of pecan pie, dried apricot, apples and syrup. Full-bodied, medium-sweet, with a dense mouthfeel of very ripe fruit and a long, powerful and spicy aftertaste. Very, very impressive. Not quite the 2001, but who's arguing?
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Ex-chateau bottle tasted blind in Sauternes. To be honest, this vintage of Suduiraut has never been thrilling and is certainly not in the same class as the 2001 or 2009, to give two examples. The nose is powerful and rich with scents of Clementine, beeswax and quince that certainly pack a punch. The palate is spicy on the viscous entry with bitter orange, marmalade and stem ginger, although the glycerine-rich finish is missing some freshness and tension. This remains an unashamedly hedonistic Suduiraut.
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Château Suduiraut is acknowledged to be one of the finest Sauternes. The team at the Suduiraut estate, passionate about their work are united in the pursuit of their goal : to extract from this great vineyard one of the world's finest wines.
The history of Château Suduiraut, in Sauternes, goes back to centuries. After the total destruction of the property by the Duke d’Epernon in the 1600’s, Count Blaise de Suduiraut replanted the vineyard and restored the estate to its former glory. On 18 April 1855 the estate was classed as a Premier Cru during the official wine classification programme in the Gironde winegrowing area. AXA Millésimes acquired Suduiraut in 1992 with the aim of preserving and perpetuating the estate's remarkable tradition of vineyard management and winemaking. Inspired by the great Suduiraut wines of the past, the new management has enabled this great vineyard to fulfill its full potential in recent years.
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.