Winemaker Notes
In its youth, the wine shows great complexity revealing a superb range of concentrated aromas. Floral notes of heather and honeysuckle combine with fresh fruits, such as quince, white peach, mango, pineapple, orange and lime zest, and dried fruits. This vibrant bouquet is completed with the estate’s signature mineral (flint) characteristic.
The palate is then wrapped with honey and spicy notes. The wine’s rare elegance is the result of a beautiful balance between rich nectar and vivid acidity. Lively and lush, it already offers remarkable freshness and power. Its racy depth and length make the 2011 vintage a wine of great
potential.
Blend: 75% Semillon, 23% Sauvignon Blanc and 2% Muscadelle
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
White peach, pineapple, white ginger, orange zest and green fig notes are clear and racy, while green almond, brioche, pear and yellow apple details wait in reserve. Offers stunning range and polish, showing terrific energy and cut on the finish. This just makes you feel special when you drink it. An estate that has been rising steadily for a while now. Best from 2016 through 2035.
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Wine Enthusiast
Well balanced, this gorgeous ripe wine is packed full of fresh yellow fruits, ripe oranges and lemon. The fruit counterpoints the generous, dense structure, offering the dry core of botrytis. Acidity gives a line of freshness at the end.
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James Suckling
This sweet white is quite oily, with dried-pineapple and mango character. It’s full-bodied, very sweet and juicy on finish. Thick and rich. Drink now or hold.
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Decanter
Sumptuous nose of apricot and pineapple. Very sweet, but with enticing purity of fruit and raciness. Concentrated but has tangy acidity, adding up to a stylish wine with impeccable balance and length. Drinking Window 2018 - 2050
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2011 Coutet is pale lemon-gold in color and has a lovely musk perfume with honeyed white peaches and pink grapefruit plus hints of beeswax and spiced pears. It's elegant and refreshing in the mouth with great purity and a savory finish.
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.
Characterized by dried tropical fruit, candied apricot, citrus and honey, the sweet wines of Barsac are always balanced by a bright beam of acidity. While technically also part of the Sauternes region, Barsac’s sandy and limestone soils produce a lighter version in comparison. Its main grapes are the same: Sémillon, Sauvignon Blanc, Sauvignon Gris and Muscadelle.