Winemaker Notes
Blend: 45% Sauvignon Blanc, 55% Sémillon
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
Honeyed orange, caramelized citrus, flowers, spice, and buttery nuances all emerge from the 2022 Château Suduiraut, a decadent Suduiraut that has a vibrant sense of freshness, perfect balance, and a gorgeous finish. It's a brilliant.
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James Suckling
So many aromas of dried apricots, turmeric, pine nuts and botrytis. Full-bodied with 190 grams of sugar and incredible length and richness. The salted caramel, light nuts and dried fruit go on for minutes. 100% semillon. A great sweet wine.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2022 Suduiraut reveals a deep, complex bouquet of ripe orchard fruits, caramel, spices and mango. Medium to full-bodied, enveloping and mouth-coating, it’s long and fleshy with great depth at the core and a long, mineral, orchard fruits-inflected finish. Entirely crafted from Sémillon and matured for 18 months in barrels (70% were new barrels), this is a classic in the making and a superb Sauternes.
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Vinous
The 2022 Suduiraut comes from a quick and late harvest in October (three between 17 and 27 October with some passerillé grapes in September). Bunches were affected by botrytis but did not concentrate, at least not until a period of wind and warmth. Wild honey, quince and touches of marmalade on the nose, this opens nicely in the glass. The palate is pure and viscous in texture, with marmalade, again, and dried honey. Very open and approachable on the finish. Not profound, but quite delicious. Christian Seely said he drank this for breakfast the previous day - why not?–Neal Martin
Barrel Sample: 93-95 -
Wine Spectator
A plump, broad style, with marzipan, toasted almond and bitter orange notes leading the way for mango, creamed peach and papaya flavors. Rich and honeyed, but with an alluring, shimmering energy through its long finish.
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Decanter
Orange, grapefruit, lemon rind, flint. Broad and wide on the palate with a lovely weight. It’s serious, not super tangy, more filling and wide, with a bitter orange tang and peach, pear and apple fruit. Rich and gourmet but clean and clear, with hints of bright acidity and juiciness that accent the quite thick texture. Calm and controlled. Textured, sleek, and clean, well defined, punchy and sharp. Great potential. 3.1 total acidity. Ageing nine months, 30% new French oak barrels, 70% one wine.
Barrel Sample: 93
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.