Winemaker Notes
Mild temperatures at the beginning of the year led to an early flowering, followed by very fresh temperatures in Spring and Summer. A very sunny weather at the end of August marked the start of a wonderful Indian Summer that truly saved the vintage. We then had optimal harvest conditions with four successive selections from September 17 to October 29. As far as volume is concerned, we will have to do with half the grapes we should have harvested. This represents approximatively 5000 cases. The 2014 vintage which is certified Organic Farming for the 4th year has all the quality a great Château Guiraud vintage has: freshness, tension, balance and aromatic purity.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
The lush mango and papaya nose leads into a wonderfully rich and concentrated palate, which also has bright acidity that really lights the whole thing up and pulls your hand back to the glass for more! Drink or hold.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The Chateau Guiraud 2014 has a perfumed bouquet with clear honey, beeswax and honeysuckle aromas that are well defined. The palate is fresh and taut on the entry: good tension and focus here, very harmonious with a gently build in the mouth towards a satisfying marmalade and quince-driven finish. This is a finely crafted Guiraud that will be a class act.
Barrel Sample: 93-95 -
Wine Enthusiast
Already beautifully balanced, this wine is intense, rich and full of layered acidity and concentrated honey flavors. It's ripe, opulent and dense, with spice notes and acidity highlighting its rich core. Drink from 2024.
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Wine Spectator
Not shy, with unctuous dried apricot, peach and tangerine fruit flavors, augmented with ginger, bitter orange and bitter almond notes that add tension. Expressive, with a floral twinge on the finish imparting lift. Best from 2020 through 2040.
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Decanter
Tropical and orchard fruit are lifted by spicy botrytis notes, crystallized ginger and lemon verbena. Balanced and refined, yet bigger than usual but remarkably fresh thanks to vibrant acidity.
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.