Winemaker Notes
The delicate, floral and spicy bouquet is marked by notes of apricots and candied lemons. On the palate, the wine is harmonious with a nice tension and pleasant aromas of almonds and bitter oranges, witnesses of a high quality botrytis.
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
Packed full of mango, pineapple and dried apricots, with a good lime zest twist on the finish. Certified organic. Now owned by the Helfrich family of Grands Chais de France, as of December 2018, so this is the first full vintage under the new team, taking over from the Cathiard/Moulin partnership. Drinking Window: 2022 - 2040.
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James Suckling
White peaches, poached pears, honey, white flowers, vanilla and sliced mushrooms on the nose. Medium-to full-bodied and lightly oily with fresh acidity. Very pretty. Sweet-spice notes on the finish.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Pale lemon colored, the 2019 Bastor-Lamontagne needs a little coaxing to reveal fragrant scents of peach blossoms, lemon curd, lime leaves and paraffin wax with nuances of marzipan, wild fungi and crushed rocks. The palate delivers fantastic freshness, cutting through the densely packed citrus and stone fruit layers, finishing with satisfying sweetness and yet with a sense of vigor.
Barrel Sample: 90-92 -
Wine Spectator
Shows good energy from the start, with a mix of candied lemon peel, white peach and papaya flavors that are fresh and tropical. Ends with a honeysuckle note.
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.