Chateau d'Yquem Sauternes (375ML half-bottle) 2011 Front Label
Chateau d'Yquem Sauternes (375ML half-bottle) 2011 Front LabelChateau d'Yquem Sauternes (375ML half-bottle) 2011 Front Bottle Shot

Chateau d'Yquem Sauternes (375ML half-bottle) 2011

  • WS99
  • JS98
  • RP97
  • WE97
  • JD95
375ML / 0% ABV
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4.5 15 Ratings
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4.5 15 Ratings
375ML / 0% ABV

Winemaker Notes

Discovering Chateau d'Yquem starts with the bouquet. Although not always very outgoing in young vintages, it is marked by fruit (apricot, mandarin, and occasionally tropical fruit) and oak (vanilla and toasty aromas). Older vintages, on the other hand, have an extraordinarily complex fragrance as soon as the bottle is opened. The bouquet is amazingly subtle, with hints of dried fruit (dried apricot, prune, stewed fruit, and marmalade), spice (cinnamon, saffron, and licorice), and even flowers (linden blossom, etc.). The first impression on the palate is always very silky, and often sumptuous. It then fills out, "coating the palate." This fine wine has a strong, but never overbearing character, with great elegance and poise. It always maintains a balance between sugar and acidity (sweetness and freshness).

Critical Acclaim

All Vintages
WS 99
Wine Spectator
A lovely, creamy, tropical style, with mango, papaya and guava notes lending a caressing feel, while singed almond and warm piecrust accents blossom through the lush finish. Just when you think that's all there is, toasted coconut, fig, orange blossom and persimmon details kick in, lending length and dimension. The finish is ridiculously long. Best from 2020 through 2060.
JS 98
James Suckling
A Sauternes with incredible purity and beauty. Full body, with lovely character of mangos, pineapple, papaya, and honey. Goes on for minutes. The purity in this wine is phenomenal. Spicy with dried mushroom and ash undertones. Gorgeous and clean. Bright. A more balanced 2001?
Barrel Sample: 97-98 Points
RP 97
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2011 d'Yquem seems to be a close cousin of the 2001 and possibly the 1988. Light gold in color, restrained but pure and noble, it offers an intense bouquet of honeysuckle, caramelized apricot and white peach with a subtle hint of toasty oak. It builds slowly but beautifully to a full-bodied wine with a long finish. This vintage is about restraint and perfect balance despite the 144 grams of residual sugar. Some vintages are more exuberant or flamboyant, but 2011 is racy and compelling. Of course, these wines can be drunk young, but expect the 2011 to age for 50-75+ years in a good cellar.
WE 97
Wine Enthusiast
Rich, with intense flavors of botrytis, lemon and Seville orange peel. This wine has both freshness and sweetness, with a light touch.
Barrel Sample: 95-97 Points
JD 95
Jeb Dunnuck
The 2011 Château d’Yquem is a more restrained, elegant style of Yquem with beautiful, nuanced notes of caramelized citrus, apricot, white flowers, and a beautiful mineral-character that emerges more on the palate. Beautifully balanced, medium to full-bodied, with good acidity and plenty of complex, sweet, honeyed fruit, it’s all about complexity, nuance, and elegance. Feel free to drink this beauty any time over the coming 40-50 years.
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Chateau d'Yquem

Chateau d'Yquem

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Chateau d'Yquem, France
Chateau d'Yquem  Winery Image

Château d’Yquem is an extraordinary place, at the very heart of Sauternes, with a hundred hectares of vineyards are planted on a mosaic of different soils. All the conditions are there to grow exceptional grapes and achieve the finest noble rot, the famous botrytis cinerea.

Through a sublimation process, the grapes reach a level a richness in taste and aromas that is simply unique in the world. Yquem preciously protects its selective harvesting secret, carried out by a team of devoted highly experienced local pickers, who have received their ancestral knowledge from the generations that came before them. Therefore, only the best grapes sublimated by botrytis cinerea are picked, because this is the golden rule at Yquem: never look for simplification, or shortcuts, and accept the risk of losing everything.

This is the price to pay to achieve excellence.


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Sauternes Wine

Bordeaux, France

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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.

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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.

FCA127076_2011 Item# 127076

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