Winemaker Notes
Attractive, intense, radiant gold, with golden, with slight honey hints. Intense, complex nose. The seductive candied honey and orange notes emerge first, then secondary aromas of almond, apricot and vanilla appear. Smooth, impressively dense flavor, with notes of orange and apricot. Beautiful enduring length. The essence of the grape. This wine is an example of the excellence of Sauternes wines: powerful, structured and elegant, with notes of fruits and intense flowers, with great aging possibilities. wine pairing with food Foie gras canapés, with dried figs, or mango chutney. Foie gras, semi-cooked or pan-fried. Extraordinaire with Roquefort, or a quality Gorgonzola.
Professional Ratings
-
James Suckling
The nose of this mouth-filling and luscious Sauternes reminds me of those slices of candied orange, dipped in bitter chocolate. There’s a ton of power behind the seductive first impression, the finish very long with some mineral character that turns it in the dry direction. Drink or hold.
-
Jeb Dunnuck
Ripe peach, flowers, and honeyed citrus all emerge from the 2016 Clos Haut-Peyraguey, which has the vintage’s upfront, ripe, forward style front and center. It has beautiful purity of fruit and is already impossible to resist, yet it’s going to evolve nicely as well.
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2016 Château Clos Haut-Peyraguey was tightly wound on the nose with hints of melted butter infusing the citrus and honey fruit. It does not quite "flow" at the moment. The palate is well balanced with pure botrytised fruit, very well-judged acidity and although the finish is dominated by a patina of creamy new oak at the moment, everything is in place for a great Sauternes.
Barrel Sample: 92-94 Points -
Wine Enthusiast
Dominated by Sémillon, this rich, luscious wine has layers of ripe fruit and intense concentration. Wood aging has sustained the richness of the wine and not overshadowed the ripe honey, candied peel and hints of almonds. The wine will age for many years. Drink from 2025.
-
Wine Spectator
Juicy, with a solid core of maple-laced orange blossom, peach, mango and persimmon flavors backed by singed almond and crème brûlée notes on the finish. Best from 2022 through 2034.
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.