Winelingo
Lusciously sweet, golden dessert wine tasting of apricot, marmalade, honey and candied citrus, often with a note of ginger or beeswax. Intensely rich yet kept in balance by bright acidity, so it finishes fresh rather than sticky.
How Sauternes wine tastes
Sauternes is one of the world’s great sweet wines: deep gold in the glass and gloriously honeyed on the palate. Expect apricot and peach, orange marmalade, honey and candied citrus peel, often layered with ginger, saffron, beeswax and, in older bottles, toffee and dried fruit.
It is intensely sweet, but the reason it feels balanced rather than cloying is acidity. A bright, citrusy freshness runs underneath all that richness and lifts the finish, so each sip leaves you wanting the next. The texture is unctuous and almost oily, coating the mouth, and the flavours go on and on.
Great Sauternes is also remarkably long-lived. The best examples can age for decades, slowly turning more savoury, nutty and complex while keeping their inner glow.
Signature styles & what to look for
Sauternes is a sweet white wine and comes in essentially one style, though quality and concentration vary widely. The peak of the hierarchy is the 1855 Classification, which ranked the estates into Premier Cru Superieur (a tier of its own, held solely by Château d’Yquem), then Premiers Crus (First Growths) and Deuxiemes Crus (Second Growths). These cru classe names are your best signposts to the most celebrated wines.
Neighbouring Barsac sits within the Sauternes appellation and may label its wines as either Barsac or Sauternes; its wines are often a touch fresher and more delicate.
Because the grapes are picked shrivelled and one by one, quantities are tiny and the wines are not cheap. A helpful tip: many estates make a dry white too, sometimes labelled ‘Sec’ or ‘G’ style, so check that a bottle is the sweet version if that is what you are after. Half-bottles are a friendly way in, since a little goes a long way.
The grapes & the land
Sauternes is made mainly from Semillon, with Sauvignon Blanc for acidity and lift and a little Muscadelle for perfume. It is a small district within Bordeaux, set where the cool little Ciron river meets the warmer Garonne.
That meeting of waters is the whole secret. Autumn mornings bring damp mists that encourage noble rot (Botrytis cinerea), a beneficial fungus that pierces and shrivels the grapes, concentrating their sugar, acidity and flavour. The afternoon sun then dries the berries further. Because each shrivelled grape yields only a few drops, and pickers go through the vineyard many times taking only the affected berries, the harvest is tiny and the resulting wine is astonishingly rich and honeyed.