Professional Ratings

• 99 Robert Parker's Wine Advocate

  Deep gold in color, the 1975 d'Yquem gives up initial notes of cashew butter, manuka honey, dried apricots, musk perfume and fallen leaves over a core of spice cake, applesauce, fungi and lemongrass. The palate is laden with bright, vibrant stone fruit and preserved citrus fruit flavors, laced with honey-nut accents and finishing provocatively earthy. While intense and hedonically satisfying, this beguiling vintage has so many nuances emerging as it unfurls, it stops you in your tracks. Make sure it is the very last wine of the evening, because once you taste this, everything else will pale into insignificance. Although this wine is currently well within its ideal drinking window, there's certainly no rush to drink well-preserved bottles.

• 98 Vinous

  The 1975 Yquem has long been the standout of the decade, and whilst a few years ago it was neck-and-neck with the 1976, now it seems to be pulling ahead. This has a showstopping bouquet with wonderful intensity and delineation. Displaying Seville orange, quince and blood orange, with hints of stem ginger and Japanese yuzu, it is difficult to drag your nose away from the glass. The palate is brilliant: stunning balance and precision, razor-sharp with almost penetrating acidity that effortlessly offsets the richness and intensity of this fully-mature Sauternes. There's so much energy. This is a revivifying Yquem at peak and unequivocally the best example of '75 that I have tasted. Tasted at the château.