Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
This almost dry wine is full of botrytized fruit tones. Well balanced, it is likely to turn into a rich, dense wine as it matures, with ample acidity that shines on the finish.
Barrel Sample: 93–95 Points -
Decanter
Based in Barsac, and has that wonderful spicy tight minerality of a Barsac. A really late harvest this year, right through til the end of October. This has such a beautiful balm yet again for me lacks some pep. It's not a 2007 or 2001 or 2011. But it's gorgeous. The texture of these wines is so crazily seductive and the power and intensity of toasted blood orange slices is stunning, but it would benefit from a lime soaked twist.
Barrel Sample -
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2016 Doisy-Vedrines was tasted on three occasions. The first, the sample seemed a little subdued, although two further encounters attest to a fine Barsac. The aromatics do not quite convey the sophistication of the Doisy-Daene, yet there is purity here, attractive dried honey and quince-like aromas, perhaps with the flair of the 2015 last year. The palate is well balanced and more refined than the Doisy-Vedrines of the past, a trend I have noticed in recent vintages. It gains plenty of weight towards the finish, delivering enticing honey, tangerine and light apricot notes with satisfying persistence. Good potential here.
Barrel Sample: 91-93 Points -
Wine Spectator
A racy and pure style, with a honeysuckle note leading off, followed quickly by white peach, pineapple and yellow apple fruit flavors mixed with acacia and orange blossom hints. Best from 2022 through 2038.
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James Suckling
Tons of candied citrus and some floral honey character here. Not as lush as some Sauternes, but more lively and charming than most and the bright finish is long. This is food-friendly – think blue cheese and pate. Drink or hold.
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.