The Demystified Vine

I headed to the Union Des Grands Crus de Bordeaux Tasting in Vancouver on Thursday, January 28, 2016 with a friend of mine who was in the same WSET certification courses I attended. At this tasting, there were 45 producers from the Bordeaux region of France pouring one or two of their wines, one of which was the 2013 vintage.

The Château Suduiraut Sauternes was most memorable. I’m still side-smacked with its wonder. It was an absolute treat.

My notes – in point form – from this tasting include:

• OMG
• WOW
• Great tangerine rind notes
• lemon, peach, pineapple, mango, honey, custard, pink grapefruit notes, sweet

For demystification purposes, Sauternes is a sweet wine, often served as dessert or as a libation complementing particular rich foods like foie gras. This sweet wine comes from the area of Graves in France. Typically, Sauternes is made from three different grapes in varying blended percentages. The three varieties are: Sauvignon Blanc, Sémillon, and Muscadelle. These grapes go through a ‘rotting’ process whereby the grapes lose water concentration by way of Botrytis cinerea, which is also known as noble rot. The noble rot concentrates the sugars in the grapes, which then concentrates the flavours for the finalized product. I know that doesn’t sound very noble, but once you smell the smells of Sauternes or taste the tastes of Sauternes, it won’t matter! Half bottles of Sauternes can cost hundreds of dollars. Now that is some serious wine.

Cheers!