Valandraud Blanc stands as one of Bordeaux’s most distinctive and collectible white wines so I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to attend a landmark tasting of every available vintage since the first in 2003 with the estate’s technical team and owner Jean-Luc Thuenvin last year.

Known for shaking up the Right Bank’s red wine scene in the 1990s with his garage-wine ethos, Thunevin turned his attention to whites in the early 2000s, proving that innovation extends beyond Merlot-dominated reds.

Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores for 20 vintages of Château Valandraud Blanc

From red revolutionary to white innovator

Inspired by prestigious whites like those from Château Mouton Rothschild and Château Margaux that he was selling at the time, and recalling St-Emilion’s pre-AOC history of white plantings (there’s historical references to ‘Sémillon de St-Emilion’ as early as the 18th century), Thunevin replanted parcels with white varieties.

The story thus begins with plantings in 2001 and 2002 on clay-limestone soils in Saint-Genès-de-Castillon and later Lalande-de-Fronsac – parcels technically outside the St-Emilion appellation, if there were ever to be a specific white designation, but close enough to share similar terroir.

Plantings and origins

The first vintage arrived in 2003, with just 585 bottles produced under the original label of Valandraud Blanc No.1. A second wine, initially No.2 and later Virginie de Valandraud Blanc, followed in 2004. Both labels changed to their current form in 2010.

Over time, the project expanded to around three hectares all under the Bordeaux Blanc AOC.

Early blends leaned on Sauvignon Blanc and Sémillon, but Sauvignon Gris – planted from 2002 onward (going into the blend for the first time in 2007) – gradually became central.

By 2014, it formed the majority in many vintages, lending a distinctive signature: aromatic intensity, exotic fruit notes (think pineapple and lychee), a textured richness (sometimes oily/slightly waxy) and a full body.

The wines also have consistently elevated alcohol levels due to the goal of full grape maturity (often straying into 15% ABV), although balanced by low pHs and extreme freshness.

The stylistic attributes combined with high-density planting in places (up to 13,330 vines/ha in some plots before adjustments), set Valandraud Blanc apart from more classical Bordeaux whites.

The vineyards total 3ha for both wines – 1.8ha in St Genès de Castillon and 1.24ha in Lalande de Fronsac.

Viticulture and winemaking

Viticulture follows eco-responsible principles, now HVE3 certified (with HVE4 targeted). Permanent grass cover, green manuring, and careful copper use preserve aromatic precursors in the grapes.

Harvesting occurs by hand in small 8kg crates over multiple passes through the vineyard for optimal ripeness, with grapes chilled before gentle pneumatic pressing lasting at least five hours.

Fermentation starts in vat before moving to barrel, with no malolactic fermentation to retain tension with a light addition of sulphur at the end.

Ageing lasts eight to 10 months on fine lees (another reason for its distinctive personality) with bâtonnage (stirring) until spring: typically 80% in new barrels (225–500l) for structure and 20% in terracotta amphorae (introduced in 2019, especially for Sauvignon Gris to enhance fruit purity).

Blending for both wines draws from around 40 lots, selected by variety, harvest date, and press quality.

Signature and style

The result is a wine of real personality: often intense and opulent yet precise, with layered and perfumed aromatics of white flowers, peach, spiced pears citrus, and exotic notes from Sauvignon Gris, underpinned by minerality and vibrant acidity.

Honeysuckle, wet stones, struck flint with nectarines, lemon tart, white pepper and dried herbs all allied to a decadently oily texture.

The wines can be both crisp and refreshing as well as rich with a moreish quality.

Early vintages (2003–2010) show more classical maturity, with some evolving into honeyed, creamy profiles, while later ones benefit from the Sauvignon Gris dominance and modern techniques like amphorae ageing and late pruning (from 2020 to counter frost risks).

Vintage evolution and standouts

A remarkable vertical tasting back to the inaugural 2003 vintage revealed a consistent thread of quality and evolution. The wine’s signature emerges strongly from around 2014 onward, with greater aromatic lift, exotic fruit depth, and crystalline freshness.

Standouts include vintages like 2019 (vibrant, complete, with amphora-influenced purity), 2016 (complex, zingy, mineral-edged despite no Sémillon), and recent ones like 2021 and 2023 (electric poise and mouthwatering tension). Even challenging years, such as frost-affected 2017, delivered lifted, floral expressions.

Given the limited production there was no 2004, only one bottle of 2005 (the last at the estate) and no 2012 – it was all sold.

Virginie de Valandraud Blanc offers a more approachable take – crisp, citrus-driven, and excellent value – while the grand vin remains the collector’s focus, produced in tiny quantities (3,000–5,900 bottles annually).

Thunevin’s vision, supported by Murielle Andraud, viticulturist Paul-Marie Morillon, Christophe Lardiere in the vines and winemaking team including Rémi Dalmasso, has created a white Bordeaux that challenges conventions.

Château Valandraud Blanc may lack the historical weight of its red counterpart, but its cult status as one of Bordeaux’s most unique and compelling whites is undeniable.

Château Valandraud Blanc: 20 vintages tasted

Tasting notes are in vintage order youngest to oldest

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Think of Bordeaux and an exclusive selection premium wines is likely to spring to mind – first growths, en primeur offerings and world-famous châteaux don’t tend to scream ‘value’.

Likewise in Burgundy, you’re unlikely to treat the grands crus of Romanée-Conti, Corton and Montrachet as casual purchases for mid-week quaffing.

But as with most wine regions, you can still find value-for-money bottles and enjoy something truly special without breaking the bank.

To back up this claim, we’ve pulled together a number of wines from across Burgundy and Bordeaux, all on the shelf at under £30 per bottle* – and some below £20.

There’s something for everyone here; sparkling, white, red and sweet, and several offerings from well-known areas including St-Julien, St-Estèphe, Beaujolais, Chablis and Sauternes.

Alongside individual producers, our selection also showcases some great-value supermarket own-brand labels.

*The Sauternes listed is available in half bottle format

Best value Burgundy and Bordeaux: 14 top picks

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Bordeaux is famous for its ageworthy reds, but its dry white wines are having a moment.

To crib from a well-known US folk artist, ‘the times they are a changin’ with regards to these typically Sauvignon Blanc– or Semillon-dominant white wines.

Although close to 90% of Bordeaux’s 110,000ha under vine are still made up of red grape varieties, production and demand for the region’s dry whites continues to rise.

Scroll down for notes and scores of 12 scintillating white wines from Bordeaux

A new regional chapter

While the Left Bank is a stronghold for dry white Bordeaux, there is more to the region than just Pessac-Léognan and Graves, with many emerging areas where specific cooler sites – often freshened by the presence of limestone – yield exciting, vibrant wines.

Indeed, a new Médoc Blanc appellation has been approved for wines bottled in 2025 (subject to an objection period). And while in Sauternes and Barsac sweet wines still reign, there’s a growing trend for dry styles there, too.

On the Right Bank, white grapes are grown on diverse plots in St-Emilion and Fronsac, with high-quality wines also found in Blaye, Francs and Côtes de Bourg.

And, with close to 7,000ha under vine (about 1,600ha of white grapes), the Entre-deux-Mers remains a powerhouse for dry whites.

Originally oriented to entry-level wines and higher volumes, a new wave of wines is emerging. These balance keen pricing with a fresh, modern style, often with floral, grassy Sauvignon Blanc characters leading the way.

Left Bank activity

The new 2025 Médoc Blanc appellation shows how things are changing.

Christophe Gouache, owner of early white pioneer Château Loudenne, observes: ‘The Médoc has been home to small quantities of high-quality dry whites since Loudenne was planted with white grapes in 1880.’

In fact, in the past, this area was better known for whites than reds.

Premium wines, including Château Margaux’s Pavillon Blanc (first vintage 1920, although white wine has been produced at the chateau since 1710), Mouton Rothschild’s Aile d’Argent (1991) and Cos d’Estournel Blanc (2005), have led the way, but the opportunities for new and innovative blends (Château d’Issan has begun production of a Rhône-style white blend, Jardin d’Issan), many at easier price-points, will likely shape Bordeaux’s dry whites for years to come.

According to Hélène Larrieu, director of ODG, the Médoc wine producers’ representative organisation, there are some 225ha planted to whites in the Médoc across 90 producers, with about half (120ha) likely to qualify for the new AP.

Larrieu says that ‘the objective is to differentiate the wines of Médoc from others in Bordeaux’, describing Médoc whites as ‘wines characterised by notes of exotic fruit together with salinity from proximity to the Gironde estuary and Atlantic ocean’.

Jacques Lurton (pictured, above), president of the Syndicat Viticole de Pessac-Léognan and president and winemaker of Vignobles Famille André Lurton, which owns five white wine-producing estates across Bordeaux, is enthusiastic about prospects for these dry gems.

He notes: ‘Historically, there were three key areas: Entre-deux-Mers was oriented to entry-level wines often dominated by [zesty, tropical] thiol characters, together with the Graves and Pessac-Léognan.’

Lurton credits the creation of the Pessac-Léognan AP 37 years ago with raising the white wine quality bar ‘as high as possible in Bordeaux – on the quality level of [Burgundy’s] Côte d’Or and [Champagne’s] Côte des Blancs’.

Lurton is also a fan of dry whites from producers in Sauternes and Barsac. ‘They already had a great understanding of their grapes, together with knowledge of barrel fermentation,’ he says.

Semillon is more significant here, resulting in a richer, less aromatic style with great ageing potential.

Changing styles & grapes

Stylistically, there’s a marked move away from oak-influenced wines across the Bordeaux region. Still a key component for top-end wines, oak is less evident, with many cuvées aged in steel or cement tanks, sometimes combined with the use of clay amphorae.

‘The idea is to keep freshness, bring balance and vibrancy,’ says Séverine Bonnie of Château Malartic Lagravière.

The presence of limestone in soils adds freshness, as shown by producers such as the Guinaudeau family of Château Lafleur in Pomerol.

Their Les Champs Libres is a top-end Right Bank white capable of competing with those from Pessac-Léognan, albeit with a markedly different texture.

And recent vintages of the family’s more entry-level Grand Village Blanc (see recommendations, below) show the great strides being made on cooler sites and represent real value.

Bordeaux is also embracing new disease-resistant hybrid ‘Piwi’ varieties such as Floréal and Souvignier Gris.

These can be used as ‘experimental’ varieties up to 5% individually in a blend (no more than 10% in total); and even more in the new Médoc Blanc AP, where Chardonnay and Alvarinho will also be permitted.

Although unlikely to take over from Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon any time soon, the development of new varieties such as these shows the scope for even more diversification in years to come.

Five benchmark Bordeaux whites to look out for

Château La Garde Blanc

A fresh, modern Pessac-Léognan white, primarily Sauvignon Blanc on deep limestone with some Semillon, vinified in oak to balance zesty citrus and mineral notes with a chiselled texture.

Château Valandraud Blanc

A rare, opulent St-Emilion white from Jean-Luc Thunevin, blending Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon and Sauvignon Gris, crafted with barrel and tank fermentation, and new oak-ageing for rich, tropical fruit and soft, rounded flavours.

Le Cygne

An insider’s secret Bordeaux Blanc from Listrac-Médoc’s Château Fonréaud, made from Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon and Muscadelle, hand-harvested and fermented in barrels (30%- 40% new) with lees aging for a complex, peachy and floral profile.

Le Petit Cheval, Blanc

An extremely limited St-Emilion white, made from 6ha planted 80/20 Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon, fermented and aged in oak barrels to produce a refined, mineral-driven wine with citrus and floral complexity.

Les Hauts de Smith Blanc

A vibrant and great-value second wine from Château Smith Haut Lafitte, made from 100% Sauvignon Blanc, fermented in oak barrels (less new oak than the grand vin) for a crisp, mineral-driven wine with lemon rind, apple and aniseed notes.

Semillon-dominant

The classic Bordeaux blend is a mix of Semillon and Sauvignon Blanc, fermented in barrel and given extended ageing in wood. Muscadelle and/or Sauvignon Gris may also be used in the blend, adding extra floral lift or weightier, exotic notes.

The wines are distinctive, often with a waxy texture adding an extra dimension to the ripe white/yellow peach fruit, with a burst of lemon and lime zest acidity.

Semillon-dominated blends will often have plenty of concentration and ageing potential. Pessac-Léognan leads the way, with many top-quality wines that are a match for the better wines of the Côte d’Or.

Although blends will vary from vintage to vintage, Semillon is usually the dominant variety in Château La Mission Haut-Brion Blanc – a wine produced in tiny quantities and selling at extremely rarefied prices.

Dry wines from Sauternes and Barsac often have a high proportion of Semillon, with the barrel-fermentation and maturation in wood more restrained than in leading wines from Pessac-Léognan.

Sauvignon Blanc-dominant

Wines in which Sauvignon Blanc dominates often have more forceful, fruit-driven, grassy and floral notes than the creamy-textured character seen with significant additions of Semillon. Lemon, lime and grapefruit characters combine with vibrant acidity to create a palate with freshness and drive.

Grapes grown on cooler, limestone-oriented sites may also display mineral or salty notes on the finish.

Wines produced at entry- to mid-price levels are often vinified in steel, aiming to preserve freshness.

Wood may be used in more premium wines, usually with an emphasis on subtlety so that the texture and flavours imparted don’t diminish Sauvignon Blanc’s natural vitality.

Howard’s pick: A 12-wine tour of Bordeaux’s dry white styles

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Given the glamour that surrounds the world of fine wine, it can be all too easy to forget that wine is an agricultural product, and that, as such, it’s subject to the vagaries of nature.

Each year is a gamble for wine producers, with a spread bet that the combination of weather, yield and disease pressure will pay out in their favour.

Stephen and Prue Henschke, fifth-generation producers of some of South Australia’s most iconic wines, are only too familiar with the annual roll of the dice.

Scroll down for the Henschke 2021 single-vineyard releases

Production volumes of all of their single-vineyard Shirazes were way down on average – and in some cases non-existent – in the challenging 2019 vintage.

This was the result of a combination of spring frosts and a hot, dry summer, as well as bushfires in the Adelaide Hills.

Worse was to come in 2020, a vintage described by Stephen as, ‘an absolute disaster’.

He says: ‘We literally had vines with no grapes on them at all – we lost a whole vintage.’

A ‘fairy-tale vintage’

As a result the following year, 2021, which he describes as ‘a beautiful, fairy-tale vintage’, came as a huge relief. Volumes were not only back up to normal, but the quality of the wines is immediately apparent to all who taste them.

Stephen believes that the wines stand comparison with the stellar vintages of 1986, 2002, 2005 and 2015 – although, as ever, each vintage has its own particular character.

‘The unique thing about 2021,’ says Stephen, ‘is that it was one of the coolest growing seasons we’ve seen in 19 years. We only had three days over 30°C. In terms of vintage comparisons, it comes closest to 2002 and 2005, both of which were wonderful years.’

The weather conditions in 2021 almost seemed to be trying to make amends for the tribulations imposed on the Henschkes over the course of the previous couple of years. There was sufficient rainfall early in the growing season to nourish the vines, then just enough water stress after veraison to help create balance and concentration in the fruit.

Finally, the growing season culminated in an Indian summer, which allowed the wines to reach near-perfect levels of colour, aromatic richness, depth of flavour and balance.

Fine-tuning in the winery

As far as the Henschkes are concerned, great wines are not made in the winery, where very little has changed over the course of generations. There has, of course, been the odd tweak here and there.

For example, instead of crushing the fruit on arrival at the winery, the bunches are now passed through a de-stemmer and optical sorter. The family also employs a more efficient cooling system than was once the case.

The use of new oak has also decreased over time from around 25% to a figure closer to 5%. Stephen explains: ‘We want the vineyard to be the hero, and not the oak.’

In 2002 screwcaps were introduced as the closure of choice for most of the range.

Vineyard goals

Instead, the Henschkes believe that true greatness comes from a near-infinite capacity for taking pains in the vineyard. As the family’s viticulturist, this is Prue’s fiefdom.

Her work is largely about managing exposure, harnessing sunlight to ripen the grapes and not to burn them.

‘The idea,’ says Prue, ‘is to draw on the cooler light in the morning and then have a very shaded canopy facing the hot afternoon sun.’

She points out that they’re helped in their goal of capturing the essence of each vineyard by the age of their vines. The emblematic Hill of Grace Shiraz vineyard averages out at 85 years old, a relatively sprightly age when you consider that the oldest vines that go into the cuvee were planted in 1860.

‘The interesting thing with the old vines,’ she says, ‘is that they seem to be designed in such a way as to set the fruit up to have beautiful balance.

In the past four years we’ve been picking grapes with high acidities and low pH levels, so the wines almost make themselves.’

Vine age and complexity

The difference between the vines that go into Hill of Grace, and the younger vines from the same vineyard, planted in 1989 – and which are used to create the Hill of Roses Shiraz – is clear, according to Stephen.

‘The palate length [of Hill of Roses] is still building, as is the complexity compared to the old-vine wines,’ he says, adding: ‘The balance is coming into better focus.’ He believes it takes about 25 years for a vineyard to start showing some real complexity.

The truth is there’s no lack of complexity in any of the Henschkes’ single-vineyard wines; just the restrained elegance and precision that speaks volumes about Prue and Stephen’s intimate knowledge of their vineyards.

It also speaks of the confidence they have in the ability of those vineyards to reveal themselves in the glass.

Winemaking may always be a bit of a gamble, but it’s clear that the Henschkes hold many – if not all – of the cards.

First taste: Henschke new releases

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Outside of Bordeaux, there aren’t many wine regions producing Semillon-Sauvignon Blanc blends, yet this white wine is a hallmark of Margaret River.

Perhaps it’s due to the incredible heights to which Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay have risen that the region’s white Bordeaux blends are tucked away in their shadows. 

Notes and scores for 10 outstanding Margaret River Semillon-Sauvignon blends below

Semillon and Sauvignon Blanc from this part of the world date back as far back as the first plantings of Margaret River Chardonnay.

The Margaret River wine region emerged in the late 1960s, following the work of Dr John Gladstones, an agronomist at the University of Western Australia. His research in 1965 and 1966 first proposed the suitability of Margaret River for viticulture.

This prompted the region’s founding commercial wineries (Vasse Felix, followed by Moss Wood, Cape Mentelle and Cullen) to plant vineyards here, with planting material (on its rootstock) sourced from what was available via the state’s Agricultural Department. 

Riesling was the first white-wine variety planted in the region, but it eventually proved less than ideal for this maritime climate. The first Chardonnay, Semillon and Sauvignon Blanc vines were planted in 1976, and in 2020 the area under vine for white wines comprised 15.8% Semillon, 19.2% Sauvignon Blanc and 17.8% Chardonnay.

Cabernet Sauvignon leads the reds, with 20.9% of the total vineyard area. 

Looking back

Vanya Cullen, chief winemaker and managing director at Cullen, recalls: ‘Mum chose the varieties to plant. She always loved the blend, while Dad was more of a Chardonnay man. We planted Semillon and Sauvignon Blanc in 1976 in the Cullen vineyard; they’re dry-farmed and the vineyard was certified biodynamic in 2004.’ 

The 1979 vintage was Cullen’s first from these vines. Rather than bottle each variety separately, they produced the region’s (and most likely the country’s) first Semillon-Sauvignon blend. The 1979 Cullen Semillon-Sauvignon was an immediate success, taking home a trophy at the Perth Royal Wine Show.

Mike Peterkin, who founded Pierro Winery in 1979, comments: ‘It was just a logical step to combine them both when the vines were ready for their first crop. The concept wasn’t particularly original; it was borrowed, but not modelled on, the French blend.

‘The Bordelais at the time were mainly red winemakers and to some extent, the white blend was an afterthought except for a couple of the top châteaux, who gave it special attention. Those wines were generally matured in oak, whereas our focus was capturing the fruit characters, which Australia was so good at doing.’

Spreading roots

The blend grew in popularity in the region, thanks to the complementary qualities of the two varieties and the perfect growing conditions for each. ‘Our founder (John Gladstone) did very well in identifying the climate and soil similarities to Bordeaux, and I would like to think it’s that long, gentle season that allows those varieties to get to a lovely and full physiological ripeness’, says Bruce Dukes of Domaine Naturaliste. 

Demand from consumers followed; the Margaret River white blend was enjoyed by Western Australian drinkers and was also popular in Sydney, on Australia’s east coast. The wine was practically made for a lifestyle of warm summers and coastal living. 

The boom reached peak popularity in the mid- to late-1990s, with production increasing to meet demand. Margaret River’s success led other wine regions to copy the same blend, but few succeeded, without the unique conditions of Western Australia’s south west that help these varieties grow so well. 

Although the blend goes back almost 50 years in Margaret River, ‘people forget that – although Semillon has a long history in Australia – there wasn’t much Sauvignon Blanc planted [in the country] at that time’ says Peterkin.

‘When I was studying winemaking at Roseworthy in the late 1970s, Hardy’s had some planted in McLaren Vale, to put into a sweet wine. That was the only Sauvignon Blanc in Australia then. It was starting to be planted in places like Margaret River, obviously, but it wasn’t the ubiquitous variety that it is now.’

Distinctive style

So, what makes a Margaret River Semillon-Sauvignon Blanc blend? Firstly the combination of Semillon’s ageability and Sauvignon Blanc’s freshness and aromatics are an ideal match. The best bottles can be enjoyed in their youth, with the capacity to develop for 10-plus years. 

The blend may have been borrowed from Bordeaux, but the Australian iteration is distinctive and has evolved and diversified from the early days. Dukes has called Margaret River home for 34 years and is a fan of the blend.

His passion for the region’s Sauvignon Blanc, in particular, has played a key role in the more textural wines produced from the variety in recent years. 

‘I think we’ve seen changes over time,’ he says. ‘In the early days, it was largely an aromatic, crisp, fresh style that was being produced, focusing on flavour and ripeness. With a greater understanding of these varieties in the vineyard, we are now getting more aromatic wines with better natural acid balance,’ Dukes adds.

Winemaking and viticulture

‘Over the last 20 years of this style, I think we also have a much better understanding of the use of oak, mainly seasoned oak, and the advantages or characters we can get from sur lie maturation. The region has become more confident, and people have explored these techniques and seen how they work well stylistically. We are seeing more sophistication across the board now than a couple of decades ago’, concludes Dukes.

As the vines have matured, so has the viticultural approach. Dukes shares his journey: ‘Over the past few decades as a winemaker, I have learned much about canopy architecture. It’s about flavour farming in the vineyard – achieving ripeness and flavour without going too far beyond that into over-ripeness,’ he explains.

‘Previously, if you were seeking intensity of flavour, you would have to get fruit riper, but now we understand the overall balance is more important than the individual component. The aim is to avoid the capsicums and thistles, and get those lovely notes of lychee, white pear and nectarine.’

Increasing diversity

The blend’s identity has progressed since the early days, and there is now a wide range of styles available in the region, including those with proven ability to age beautifully. Skin contact and lees work are regularly utilised to build texture and complexity. Many producers choose to use oak, in either supporting or significant roles. 

Wines such as Dormilona’s Orenji show that the blend lends itself to creative winemaking choices. In this case, the fruit is co-fermented on skins for two weeks in open fermenters, spends time in cement egg and then is pressed to go through full malo. 

Some producers add a dash of a third variety, such as Chardonnay or Verdelho. 

Cullen began making a white Bordeaux blend from its Mangan vineyard in 2006, with the inclusion of Verdelho. Cullen recalls: ‘We made separate vineyard blends once our vineyards were certified biodynamic.

‘The Mangan’s strength as a vineyard is about fruit vitality with the addition of the Verdelho and no oak. In contrast, the older vines on the Cullen vineyard can handle more time in oak, about 70%, with the Sauvignon Blanc dominant in the blend. Overnight skin contact and biodynamics are our two major points of evolution.’ 

Several other producers have chosen to add a dash of the region’s calling card, Chardonnay. They include Cath Oates at Oates Ends and Peterkin at Pierro. 

Winning new fans

Peterkin notes: ‘Sydney has seen a recent resurgence of interest in the Margaret River white blends. I think people are starting to look for something slightly different from [varietal] Chardonnay. Our LTC is still a relatively expensive wine in its category, but at that price point, people can buy an average Chardonnay or enjoy a Semillon-Sauvignon Blanc that is really very good quality.’ 

Given their maturity, quality and identity, perhaps it is time to refer to these world-class white blends as the Margaret River White Blend, dropping any reference to Bordeaux altogether. The wines, after all, speak for themselves.

‘They are the dark horses of the portfolio; they do age really, really well,’ shares Cullen. ‘You can have texture, complexity and deliciousness in the blends, as well as longevity and drinkability. People are blown away when they taste them, because they can be a die-hard Chardonnay drinker, and they’ll go, “Oh, wow, that’s incredible. I didn’t think I liked Sauvignon Blanc, but I love that!”’

Margaret River white Bordeaux-style blends: 12 to try

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That Susana Balbo has been a pioneering force in Argentine (and South American) wine goes without saying.

Her talent as a winemaker, entrepreneurial spirit, resilience in the face of many challenges and the way in which she has reframed the possibilities for women in the wine industry make her one of the sector’s most respected names.

Which explains her worthy inclusion in Decanter’s Hall of Fame in 2024.

Scroll down for tasting notes and scores for Susana Balbo’s eight vintages of Signature White Blend

Landmark year

Serendipitously – and rather symbolically – the bestowment of Decanter’s lifetime achievement award coincided with the 25th anniversary of Balbo’s eponymous project, founded in 1999 as Dominio del Plata. Her winery and range now bear her name – appropriately, for hers are wines with a very personal imprint.

Beyond the Hall of Fame recognition, the quarter-century anniversary was marked by the release of a special library edition of Cabernet Sauvignon from the flagship Nosotros range.

However, rather than merely celebrating her achievements, Balbo used the landmark year to consider the evolution of one of her now best-known – and itself pioneering – wines, the Signature White Blend.

A vertical tasting of all vintages since the inaugural 2016 provided an opportunity to consider the wine’s evolution and potential, as well as its meaning for South American wine more broadly.

Indeed, if South America has now firmly established itself as a safe source of fine red wine – of consistent quality, expressiveness and collectability – the full potential for premium whites is yet to be fully unleashed. But a revolution is afoot, with Balbo’s Signature White Blend a strong step forward – for the path it has opened and questions it has raised.

Balbo herself recognises that the Signature White Blend is a work in progress; a journey of learning – as ever – and discovery that shows a humble recognition of work yet to be done.

Embracing the challenge

The genesis of a Bordeaux-inspired white blend was a visit by Tim Atkin MW to Balbo’s winery in Mendoza.

‘Chatting to Susana Balbo one day, I bemoaned the relative shortage of good white blends in Argentina,’ explains Atkin.

Wouldn’t there be potential to produce an age-worthy wine, Argentine in its essence, to rival the world’s best whites and match the country’s great reds? ‘So a week later, we sat down with a Sémillon from Mendel, a Sauvignon Blanc from Giuseppe Franceschini and her own Torrontés and played with some components for fun.’

Not one to shy away from a good challenge and always driven by great curiosity (creative as well as technical) Balbo set out to add the experiment to her aptly-named Signature range.

‘Little did I imagine that she would go ahead and make a wine based on our cuvée. Not only that, she improved on it,’ Atkin continues.

Queen of Torrontés – and much more

Having started her career in the cradle of Torrontés Riojano, in Cafayate (Salta), and often referred to as the ‘Queen’ of Argentina’s flagship white variety (see latest releases of her Signature Barrel Fermented and Late Harvest iterations for proof), Balbo was well placed to make the best of the variety’s aromatic and textural potential, alongside classical French counterparts.

Balbo says that blending is the winemaker’s greatest skill; the ability to produce something that is more than the sum of its parts. The signature White Blend indeed shows how Torrontés, Sauvignon Blanc and Sémillon can work to each other’s benefit: the florality of Torrontés outlined by Sauvignon’s herbaceousness; the woolly weight of Sémillon (especially with some years in bottle) lifted by the aromatic vividness of its counterparts; the zesty scalpel of Sauvignon softened by the barrel-aged Torrontés and unctuous Sémillon.

‘Textural’ is a word often used to describe this wine. Texture is indeed central to the identity of the wine, a product of multiple, complementary factors. The Sémillon and Sauvignon grapes undergo pre-fermentative maceration; Sauvignon and Torrontés are fermented in oak, where they are kept on the lees for two months; the final blend ages for up to six months in barrel (60% of which new).

The subtle phenolic grip at the core of this wine is key to its medium-term development, showing particularly well in vintages 2018 to 2020.

Vintages 2016 and 2017, with the weighty, nutty depth of Sémillon emerging more vividly, suggest there’s great potential for this to become a wine designed to be drunk with even more time in bottle.

Leveraging further potential

Which left me wondering whether Balbo is treading too carefully. Could Torrontés be brought to the forefront, especially in vintages where Sauvigon Blanc tends to dominate the aromatic palette and the wine therefore seems a bit more removed from its place? Is there perhaps potential for more ageing in barrel?

Some vintages seem to suggest that the marrying of the blend and the textural potential would benefit from a bit more wood. And moving the dial into slightly more oxidative territory might add an interesting depth of field. If so, more extended macerations might add complexity without loss of elegance.

Such questions would not be asked, however, if the wine did not show, already, the character, poise and evolution potential of a great white. Atkin says that since its first vintage, the Signature White Blend ‘has gone on to become one of South America’s finest and most distinctive whites’.

‘The first one was good, of course, but since then she’s refined the blend and improved the quality. I’m proud to have inspired her to make something so good.’

Curiosity and anticipation is how we’ll wait to see how Balbo takes it further.

Susana Balbo Signature White Blend – all released vintages scored and tasted:

Wines in order of release, with latest release shown first. 

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The dry white Semillon of Hunter Valley is one of the wine world’s greatest secrets. It has a devoted following among those consumers who have discovered it and it’s revered by the winemakers of the Hunter Valley in New South Wales; yet it goes curiously uncelebrated in much of the wider world.

The Hunter Valley – a two-hour drive north of Sydney – is Australia’s oldest continuing wine region, becoming established in the 1830s. Semillon is believed to have been grown there from the start, although it wasn’t always given its correct name, its wines being labelled variously as Shepherd’s Riesling, Rhine Gold and Chablis, among others.

As with Chenin Blanc in the middle Loire, Pinot Noir in Burgundy and Nebbiolo in Piedmont’s Langhe, there are few places on the globe where Semillon excels as it does in the Hunter.

Scroll down to see notes and scores for 18 exquisite Semillons from the Hunter Valley

Old vines on poor soils

Key to its success are the poor, white, sandy soils of ancient river beds where the best Semillon grapes are grown. These soils are low in fertility and well drained. Many vines are more than a century old and unirrigated, and their roots go deep.

In particular, the area along the rather ill-named Hermitage Road in Pokolbin is where Tyrrell’s, Keith Tulloch, Thomas Wines, Pepper Tree and others source their most prized grapes.

Fruit from vineyards such as Braemore, Casuarina, Trevena, Tyrrells’ HVD and Keith Tulloch’s Field of Mars is highly valued by winemakers and keenly sought where available to buy. This area is what Keith Tulloch refers to as Pokolbin’s ‘grand cru strip’ of the Hunter Valley.

The Hunter isn’t a cool-climate region – its relatively northern latitude and low altitude (roughly 50m-250m) mitigate against that – but its proximity to the sea (the Pacific ocean is less than 40km from Cessnock) and extensive cloud cover moderate the climate.

On the other hand, it can be quite wet during the ripening season, so the fact that Semillon is harvested early works in its favour.

Young and old

Hunter Semillon at its best isn’t grassy or herbaceous when young, but scented with lemon juice, lemongrass and fragrant herbs. It’s delicate, restrained and refreshing, with appetising acidity and low alcohol: normally between 10% and 12%.

Fermented dry and not usually wood-aged, it makes a stimulating aperitif wine and also goes well with a wide range of delicate foods, such as crustaceans and other shellfish, finned fish, salads and vegetable dishes.

It ages superbly, for up to 20 years or more, and the more committed producers release semi-mature Semillon (usually at about five years old) annually, alongside their most recent vintages.

As Semillon ages, the colour deepens and the bouquet becomes more complex: toasty and honeyed, sometimes with buttery traces and often veering into the roasted hazelnuts more commonly seen in aged Chardonnay. The palate also puts on weight and richness, but without losing its essential finesse and appetising qualities.

Tyrrell’s, Mount Pleasant and Brokenwood are the three top-level producers, closely followed by Keith Tulloch, McGuigan, Silkman, First Creek, Vinden, Gundog, Briar Ridge, Pepper Tree, Margan and Audrey Wilkinson, all of whom are right up there.

Mount Eyre, Leogate, De Iuliis, Tamburlaine, David Hook, Usher Tinkler, Saddler’s Creek, Scarborough, Tintilla, Hart & Hunter and Allandale also produce fine examples.

Sadly, many of those bottles can only be found in Australia. Even finding enough wineries that export Semillon to the UK for this report was difficult. While other markets, such as Scandinavia, do import Hunter Semillon, it remains a niche variety.

Let’s hope that more people will discover its pleasures.

Huon Hooke’s pick of Hunter Valley Semillon:

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Bordeaux estate Château Pichon Baron has become the latest property in the region to launch a white cuvée.

The Pauillac cru classé announced that the first vintage of its new white wine – from the 2023 vintage – would be made available through a ‘selected number of chosen négociants’ from October this year.

Les Griffons de Pichon Baron, Grand Vin Blanc Sec is a 100% Semillon and will be priced between £45 and £48 per bottle.

The estate made a massal selection of Semillon from Château Suduiraut, its sister property in Sauternes, back in 2018.

The cuttings were then grafted onto 20 year-old vines in a cool, chalky part of the Pichon Baron estate in Pauillac, a vineyard site known as ‘Boua’.

The wine was made with whole bunch pressing and then vinified in one-year-old barrels. It did not undergo malolactic conversion and was aged for nine months in oak with regular lees stirring.

Given current restrictions in current classification laws, it will be bottled as an AOC Bordeaux Blanc Sec.

‘We are extremely pleased with the result, which confirms both our faith in the quality, character and individuality of the Semillon we selected but also our confidence in the quality and suitability of this parcel for making dry white wine at the highest level,’ said the estate.

Growing offering

Pichon Baron’s announcement makes it just the latest in a growing list of Médoc estates adding white wines to their offering.

It was recently announced that Château d’Issan was picking the grapes for its first white cuvée this harvest – albeit from varieties typically found in the Rhône not Bordeaux.

And Decanter also recently examined the development of a new appellation for Médoc blanc which is currently under consideration.

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Do you know the feeling? You’ve got new shoes and your favourite jacket. You’ve had a good haircut. You step out into the street feeling confident and ready to take on the world… That feeling was everywhere I went, on my recent visit to Chile – winemakers brimming with enthusiasm; wines full of energy.

And nowhere was this confidence more on display than in the country’s white wines. Known generally as a source of reliable, wallet-friendly Sauvignon Blanc, Chile is now also home to terroir-driven Chardonnay, old-vine Semillon and Chenin Blanc, unusual varieties and exciting blends.

In the three decades since the country began exporting to the UK, the revolution has been dramatic. Steve Daniel, head of buying at importer Hallgarten & Novum Wines, was the first to introduce Chile to British wine lovers.

‘When I first visited the country and brought back wines to Oddbins’ shelves in 1988, the wine industry as we know it in Chile was just starting out,’ he says. ‘They had no idea of what modern wine tasted or looked like, but they did have good-quality, mostly Cabernet, grapes.’

Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores for 12 new wave Chilean white wines

White wine production was in its infancy. ‘Casablanca was being investigated as a potential source of quality white grapes and the first vines were in but not producing on a commercial scale,’ explains Daniel. ‘Leyda and San Antonio were not discovered from a wine perspective – nor were any of the higher-altitude or desert vineyards that are now used for quality white wine.’

The shift in Chile’s white wine scene has been motivated by a range of local and global factors. These include climate change, the exploration of new growing regions, a focus on old-vine heritage, changes in vineyard management and winemaking techniques – including a move away from overt oak use – and the rise of boutique producers.

Cooling influences

On the subject of climate, it’s worth pointing out that Chile is much cooler than you probably think – and its coolest regions are where white vines flourish. ‘People who don’t know Chile don’t know that we’re penguins,’ quips Tomás Rivera, viticulturist at Viña Leyda.

He’s talking about the Humboldt Current, which transports cold, sub-Antarctic water north along Chile’s Pacific coast. In a narrow coastal country like Chile, which averages only 177km east-west, the influence of the sea can’t be overstated.

Over time, vineyard plantings have crept ever closer to the ocean in order to take advantage of its cooling effects. ‘The explosion of coastal vineyards has been super-important in the boom of Chilean whites,’ notes Chile expert Alistair Cooper MW, DWWA judge and president of South America’s Catad’Or World Wine Awards.

Viña Leyda was a pioneer in Leyda, planting vines in 1998, releasing its first wine in 2001 and successfully petitioning for the creation of the Leyda Valley DO in 2002. There were only two other producers there when the DO started; now there are 10.

‘The signature of Leyda is high acidity,’ notes Rivera, whose vineyards are planted with Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Riesling and Sauvignon Gris. ‘I really like Sauvignon Gris – it has a lot of potential. But Riesling is our challenge – no one knows about Riesling in Chile,’ he says.

His Riesling, planted on granitic soils and cooled by Pacific fogs, has vibrant linear acidity. Northwest of Leyda – and even closer to the sea – is the tiny Lo Abarca DO. Casa Marín is the only producer here; its founder, María Luz Marín, Chile’s first female winemaker, planted her vineyard just 4km from the Pacific, against the advice of other wine professionals but with a firm belief in the potential of cool-climate wines in Chile. Her faith was vindicated when her Sauvignon Blanc 2004 gained international recognition with a DWWA Gold medal.

‘We are one of the coolest vineyards in Chile – cooler than Leyda – and all of our wines show you coolness,’ notes Marín. What’s the signature of Lo Abarca? ‘Whites carry a silty character on the palate… And the wines age really well. We never have to acidify in the cellar – that’s why the ageing potential is so high.’ Indeed – that award-winning 2004 Sauvignon is tasting beautifully 20 years on.

Marín’s son Felipe is now in charge of winemaking, a generational change that has brought with it a stylistic shift that’s being mirrored all over Chile. ‘When Felipe arrived, he wanted wines with less alcohol, so we pick earlier,’ Marín explains. ‘I used to have a consultant from the US and the style was bigger, with higher alcohol. It’s now more delicate.’

Places not grapes

This general refinement of style has gone hand-in-hand with a better understanding of the unique terroirs that can be found across Chile.

‘Twenty years ago, we were looking for more commercial styles. In the last 10 years, there’s been

more of a focus on precision and finding a sense of place,’ explains Marcelo Papa, technical director at Concha y Toro. His top white, ‘Amelia’, from Limarí – Chile’s first ultra-premium Chardonnay – is a case in point.

One of the first to plant vines in the region, Papa has worked in Limarí since the 1990s, the style of his wines evolving as the vines matured and he gained a better understanding of the terroir. The Quebrada Seca vineyard is planted in four roughly 2.5ha blocks, 22km from the Pacific, on clay-calcareous soil.

‘Limarí is cool climate, but it’s cloudy, so there’s less sunlight. We have a similar number of degree days to Burgundy and Oregon,’ he adds. These conditions enable him to make ‘a very classic style of Chardonnay’ in the Burgundian mode.

He believes that regionality will become increasingly visible in Chile’s whites. ‘In 20 years’ time, people will be talking about places in Chile – regions – not grape varieties,’ he predicts.

‘People are looking for wines of site now, not wines of style,’ agrees Guillermo Calderón at Casas del Bosque in Casablanca – a DO that was pioneered by the influential Pablo Morandé for white wines.

‘Chile is moving towards pursuing its own identity. For a long time, we were trying to produce other styles, looking towards other regions… Now we are getting local identity for our wines.’

Going to extremes

The search for a unique identity has led winemakers to explore ever more diverse areas, venturing to the dramatic glacial landscapes of Patagonia in the deep south’s Austral region. Pioneers here include Casa Silva, the first to plant vines in Futrono, 904km south of Santiago, on volcanic slopes above Lago Ranco, in 2006.

The inaugural vintage of its Lago Ranco Riesling was released in 2016. The latest vintage reveals the potential of these maturing vines along with further proof that, in the right site, Riesling has a bright future in Chile.

Even closer to the Antarctic, Miguel Torres Chile has experimental plantings in Puerto Ibáñez and Puerto Sanchez near lake General Carrera. ‘Here there is a microclimate where temperatures are more moderate, with less extremes, without snow,’ says technical director Eduardo Jordán. ‘The biggest problem is the wind, so vineyards have to be protected with nets or natural protection with tree lines.’

The producer is still in the process of searching the region for the most suitable sites for placing the vineyards, he adds: ‘But we’re sure that this part of Chile has an important potential, especially given the climate change that has opened barriers unthinkable in recent years.’

Viña Ventisquero also has plantings near lake General Carrera. Its vineyards in Chile Chico sit at 46° 33’ latitude, in contrast to its plantings at the opposite end of the country, 690km north of Santiago at 28°S in the Atacama, the most arid desert on Earth.

‘It hasn’t rained here in the last 50 years!’ notes senior winemaker Alejandro Galaz. The Tara wines he makes from Atacama with head winemaker Felipe Tosso vividly display a sense of place.

Limestone soils, a rarity in Chile, produce Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc with a mineral profile. However, viticulture was made more complex by the soil’s high salinity levels. ‘These soils are very old – millions of years ago they used to be under the sea – so there’s a large amount of salt,’ explains Galaz.

The initial plantings, made in 2008, failed; the problem was solved by installing individual sprinkler irrigation for each vine. Fog rolling in from the ocean 30km away and a significant diurnal temperature difference ensure that the grapes retain high natural acidity. ‘The increasing age of the vines has made a difference. We are understanding the vineyard much better now.

The character of the place doesn’t allow us to do much with the wines – they have to express themselves,’ concludes Galaz.

Back to the future

Alongside the innovation of these fairly recent plantings, there has been renewed interest in the heritage of Chile’s old vines in its historic growing

regions.

‘Main viticulture in Chile started in the 16th century in Itata,’ explains Jordán. The oldest vineyards were planted by Jesuit missionaries between the coastal range and the ocean. ‘I like Itata a lot. Everything is bush vines, dry farming; soils are slate, granite, loam, clay.’

Soil specialist Pedro Parra, known as ‘Dr Terroir’, was thinking about relocating from his native Chile to Chianti in Tuscany until he tasted wines from Itata.

‘You always ignore what’s on your doorstep,’ he admits ruefully. ‘Itata is the least Chilean place in Chile. It reminds me of Barolo with its round hills. There’s no irrigation, nothing industrial, and old vines.’ He explains that the high iron content in the soils – ‘like Burgundy’ – contributes to the particular character of wines produced from these old vines.

Also like Burgundy, vineyards here are planted in a patchwork of small plots, often owned and worked by the same families for generations.

Along with neighbouring Bío Bío, Itata was home to more than 75% of Chile’s vineyard area in the early 19th century. But as the Central Valley rose to prominence from the mid-20th century, these southern vineyards were largely forgotten.

Looking southwards

Concern for the environment sparked renewed interest, as unpredictable weather patterns and water scarcity prompted many to rethink both the location of vineyards and the viability of the location of vineyards and the viability of conventional farming.

The traditional dry-farmed vineyards of Itata and Bío Bío are more resilient to water shortages – though sadly they’re not immune to all of climate change’s effects, as the devastating wildfires of 2023 proved.

Moscatel de Alejandria and Semillon are the signature whites in Itata and Bío Bío, with many ungrafted centenarian vines. Encouragingly, much is being done to preserve them – both by boutique producers such as Itata pioneer Leo Erazo, who put the region back on the map, and by larger companies such as Santa Carolina, which has collected massal selections (cuttings from the estate’s best stock) of old vines in its Bloque Herencia vineyard.

‘When vineyards in Itata were devastated by wildfires, Santa Carolina could give growers massal selections of old vines to replant,’ says head oenologist Alejandro Wedeles.

Renewed interest in heritage grapes has brought with it a return to traditional techniques. For whites, this means skin contact and the use of using large old tinajas to age its Itata whites.

‘The tinaja tends to give some earthy clay notes, but largely it’s neutral,’ explains winemaker Nicolás Pérez. ‘The idea with the tinaja wines is to show purity of fruit but with a sense of place.’

In the mix

Traditional field blends from Itata – such as Erazo’s Rogue Vine Grand Itata Blanco, made from Moscatel, Riesling and Semillon planted in a dry-farmed vineyard in 1922 – show a different side to Chilean wine.

Indeed, some of the most exciting whites I tasted for this article were blends. They range from Santa Rita’s Floresta field blend of Semillon, Sauvignon Vert, Moscatel, Torontel and Corinto, to Valdivieso’s inaugural Caballo Loco Blanco, a daring mix not only of grapes but of regions and vintages.

‘It only took me seven years to put it together,’ jokes Valdivieso head winemaker Brett Jackson, who was inspired by the slowly oxidised style of aged white Riojas.

The blend includes Moscatel de Alejandria from Itata. ‘Moscatel de Alejandria is a tough call,’ he says. ‘It has this phenolic edge. But if you put it into barrel for four years, the tannins disappear and it becomes so rich, with oxidative characters.’

Also pushing the envelope for Chilean blends is Pablo Morandé Junior, winemaker at Bodegas RE, a boutique winery set up with his famous father and siblings in Casablanca in 2008. Its experimental wines include Chardonnoir, a white blend of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.

‘We’re making new styles of wine; new for Casablanca and new for Chile,’ he says. ‘We blend wines, we blend names. We’re trying to make different wines to show other producers – to show that Chile has the potential for white blends.’

Meanwhile, in Maule, Viña Morandé planted Marsanne and Roussanne in Melozal in 2013. Chief winemaker Ricardo Baettig blends the fruit with Viognier from Casablanca to create his Rhône blend Bestiario, which is fermented and aged in concrete eggs.

‘Experiences in Europe led us to appreciate the potential of the Chilean climate with Mediterranean varieties,’ he explains. ‘We opted for unconventional varieties in Chile, such as Marsanne, Roussanne and Viognier, to highlight their potential and their ability to create an exceptionally complex and distinctive white wine.’

Baettig believes Rhône grapes could have a future in Chile. ‘In these 10 years managing vineyards of these varieties, we have learned a lot about better interpreting their characteristics. The future looks very promising!’

Although white plantings only account for 34,016ha of Chile’s total vineyard area, compared with 95,000ha for reds, Baettig is confident of the potential. ‘Beyond Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon is interesting, and also Chenin Blanc in Itata, grafted onto old País vines, is showing good results,’ he says.

Ventisquero’s Tosso agrees. ‘There is a lot more potential for whites in Chile. It’s easier to sell Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay from Chile, but there’s room for other varieties,’ he says.

Meanwhile, styles of Sauvignon and Chardonnay continue to be fine-tuned. ‘In terms of quality, Sauvignon Blanc has more potential to express its terroir. There are more terroirs in Chile that suit Sauvignon Blanc; fewer for Chardonnay. But Chardonnay quality has increased big time.’

Importantly, Chile is now making serious whites that can age. ‘It’s a challenge for Chilean whites, because consumers think of young whites from Chile,’ notes Jordan of Miguel Torres. But it’s time to rethink, tune into Chile’s optimism and explore the exciting whites on offer.

Chile’s new whites: 12 to explore

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Argentinian sommelier Florencia Rey has led the beverages team at award-winning Maido restaurant in Lima, Peru, since 2014. The Nikkei cuisine by chef-owner Mitsuharu Tsumura allows her to play around with sake as well as South American and European wines; she also runs an alcohol-free program. In November 2023, Florencia was named Beronia Latin America’s Best Sommelier 2023 as part of the Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants awards.

While its origins are in Bordeaux and it makes some of the world’s greatest wines of their type, today Semillon is also deeply rooted in the New World, in countries such as Australia, Chile, South Africa – and my home country of Argentina. I adore this white grape for its versatility because, on the one hand, it’s associated with legendary botrytised wines such as Sauternes and Barsac, but as a standalone variety it also offers up fresh, dry expressions typified by jasmine and camomile characters. And it’s a fantastic component in blends, too, most often supporting Sauvignon Blanc or Chardonnay.

Brought to Argentina in the mid-19th century along with the red Malbec, Semillon develops well in fresh-to-moderate climates such as as those in Mendoza’s Uco Valley and Río Negro’s Alto Valley. A low-to-medium acidity grape, it bursts with fleshy orchard fruits, depending on its origin and the stage at which it’s picked. While it’s usually aromatic and fresh, I tend to perceive honeyed notes and lemon or lime peel aromas.

It wasn’t very long ago that Semillon gained traction in Argentina, in table wines and as a base for sparkling wine. However, its use does date back further. One legend is Bodega Lagarde’s 1942 Semillon, forgotten about until new (the current) owners discovered it in a foudre, a gem with amontillado-like notes. Then in 1976, Humberto Canale in Río Negro became the first winery to bottle the variety as Semillon Blanc; it was produced exclusively for export, another first.

Sadly though, in Argentina few producers attached much value to Semillon as a variety, and cultivation dwindled over the past three decades – in 2022, just 578ha were cultivated around Argentina, an almost-tenfold decrease compared with 5,486ha in 1968, according to the national wine institute. But fortunately it’s regaining popularity.

Argentina’s contemporary Semillon champion is Roberto de la Mota of Mendel Wines. He sourced grapes from Uco Valley in 2009, a pioneering move for the time. Other winemakers later followed suit, such as Riccitelli Wines’ Old Vines From Patagonia, from Río Negro (2021, £36-£39 Shelved Wine, Vin Cognito, Wine Republic), and Passionate Wine’s lower-alcohol, old-vine Via Revolucionaria Hulk from Tupungato, Uco Valley (2021, US$17-$20 Bottle Barn, Solano Cellars, Wine.com).

Going back to the Old World, thinking about sweet wines such as Sauternes, who doesn’t want to try a Château d’Yquem? Its vineyards are planted to about 80% Semillon – and it’s so delicious with blue cheese and dried fruit. And how about these for wonderful matches: Zuccardi’s Polígonos del Valle de Uco Tupungato Semillon with a salad of rocket (arugula in the US) topped with baked pears, Gorgonzola and caramelised almonds, or with grilled trout; or fatty fish accompanied with a yellow chilli pepper sauce (like we prepare in Peru), passion fruit and capers with Le G de Château Guiraud Bordeaux Blanc blend (2022, £21-£22 Davy’s, Frazier’s, Palmers, Thos Peatling).

Discovering Semillon: Rey’s top picks

I still remember the tension of Château Climens, Premier Grand Cru Classé Barsac 2014 (£49.95/ 37.5cl The Fine Wine Co). The dehydrated orange and lime notes and ripe papaya in the mouth paired particularly well with a lemon cream tartlet.

I really like the freshness of Zuccardi’s Polígonos del Valle de Uco Tupungato Semillon; it’s rich like a green apple and bears white floral notes. The 2022 (£27.50 Christopher Keiller) is very vibrant and while it’s versatile, I enjoy it as an apéritif.

Winemaker Leo Erazo’s Revolver Semillon comes from La Consulta in Uco Valley and it really expresses these limestone soils’ minerality. Its nose is quite honeyed and complex, and the 2018 has plenty still to give. I’d pair it with a prawn risotto.

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Domaine de Chevalier reflects the charismatic nature of tireless owner Olivier Bernard, 63, whose energy impresses everyone who meets him.

‘Olivier is a great connoisseur with a mouthwatering way of life,’ says Michael Grimm, of German importer Bacchus Wines. ‘You taste and enjoy his vision to produce one of the most delicious and best Bordeaux wines for clients and connoisseurs all over the world.’

Scroll down to see notes and scores of 12 white and red wines from Domaine de Chevalier

After acquiring the estate in 1983, Bernard expanded the vineyard and introduced important renovations, including a new winery, with assistant Rémi Edange.

He has added other properties to his portfolio, from becoming tenant and winemaker at Domaine de la Solitude, also in Pessac-Léognan, shareholder at Château Guiraud in Sauternes and, since 2011, producing the dry white wine Clos des Lunes.

This is not an exhaustive list. He was president of the Union des Grands Crus de Bordeaux, co-wrote a book about red wines – The Magic of the 45th Parallel: The Ideal Latitude for the World’s Great Wines – and is working on a book on white wines.

He also regularly organises tasting events, such as the dinner series Tour de France, which features top wines from all over France.

In recent years, sons Hugo, 36, and Adrian, 38, have helped to manage the estate: Adrian represented Domaine de Chevalier in Shanghai and Hong Kong before returning to Bordeaux recently to work ‘on the business side’, Bernard says.

While not technical director, Hugo oversees production, from harvest to bottling. The refinement of Domaine de Chevalier has been abetted since 2002 by consultant Stéphane Derenoncourt, who is known for softer winemaking extraction.

French wine critic Bernard Burtschy praises Bernard for having ‘understood that it is necessary to build a top-notch team and to be able to delegate’.

From the gas to the brake pedal

Domaine de Chevalier is the jewel of the Bernard family crown. A rare classified growth (cru classé) in the Graves region for both red and dry white wines, its surrounding forest creates a cool microclimate – advantageous for climate change.

The reds are classically ripe, never overripe. The whites – fresh, concentrated and refined – count among the most critically acclaimed in Bordeaux.

When I tasted a horizontal of Pessac-Léognan whites of the 2000 vintage back in 2010, Domaine de Chevalier shone brightly in that warm millennial vintage, which is known more for reds than whites.

Located on a plateau of up to 60 metres above sea level, the vineyard has a wider diurnal temperature range than neighbouring estates.

Nights are cooler longer, another ally against global warming. but the estate is more susceptible to frost – no less than 17 anti-frost machines are ready each spring, says Bernard.

Climate change has been ‘very good’ up to now, Bernard says. ‘We have never seen a string of such excellent vintages,’ he says, referring to six of the last eight: 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2022.

But he is preparing for future warming by replanting vines, adjusting trellising and adding cellar insulation, among other steps.

It was a different world when he arrived, having worked with former owner Claude Ricard for several years before fully taking over with Edange.

Domaine de Chevalier at a glance

History: The estate was first named Domaine de Chevalier in 1852, then purchased by Arnaud and Jean Ricard – who also owned Château Haut-Bailly and Malartic-Lagravière – in 1865. Grandson Claude Ricard took over the property in 1945. Jean Bernard and his brothers acquired the estate in 1983 and entrusted management to son Olivier Bernard, who tripled the vineyard size and added a new winery.

Surface area: 65.5ha under vine, with 6.5ha white and 60ha red.

Red grape plantings: 61% Cabernet Sauvignon, 28% Merlot, 9% Petit Verdot, 2% Cabernet Franc.

White grape plantings: 70% Sauvignon Blanc, 30% Sémillon.

Average vine age: 35 years.

Soil: Gravel and black sand on clay-gravel subsoil.

Owner: Olivier Bernard.

Technical director: Thomas Stonestreet.

Winemaker: Louis de Bouglon.

Consultant: Stéphane Derenoncourt.

Organic/biodynamic conversion: Certified 100% organic for white this year and 100% organic for red wine in 2024. Currently 70% biodynamic.

Under Ricard’s stewardship, Domaine de Chevalier was included in the Graves classification established in 1953. Bernard praises Ricard as a ‘wine grower with encyclopaedic knowledge who taught me all about wine’.

But up until about 20 years ago, the norm had been cooler vintages. Chaptalisation – adding sugar to musts to increase potential alcohol – was common practice in Bordeaux.

‘Sure, we had some hot vintages, like 1989 and 1990, but they were not torrid,’ Bernard explains. ‘Back then, we had to step on the gas pedal to get ripeness; these days, we are learning to use the brakes.’

That means replacing faster-ripening Merlot with slower-ripening Cabernets. Planted to 35% Merlot back in the 1980s, the vineyard today has under 30% of this grape variety, and it will be even less in the future, Bernard says.

Leaf clearing was once systematic, but is now less frequent, because leaves protect grapes against the sun.

Bernard is also adding 80mm of insulation to cellar walls to keep temperatures cool. ‘We make wines with less acidity these days, which are more fragile, so we need lower cellar temperatures,’ he says. Furthermore, cooler cellars reduce the risk of Brettanomyces.

Towards organic and biodynamic

Record dry heat in 2022 led to a white grape harvest that ended in August.

Future harvests could take place even earlier in August, but Bernard wants to avoid that scenario, because ‘the best white wines are picked in September, with shorter days and cooler nights bringing essential aromatics’.

About 1.5ha of red grape vines are being replaced with white to prepare for the next two decades, he says.

He is reducing planting density of white grape vines from the current 10,000 vines per hectare to 8,500. ‘Lower density means more grape bunches per vine, which slows down their ripening rate’, he explains. He plans higher trellising for the whites for increased shade.

‘Climate change has compelled us to rethink the association of grape vines with terroir,’ Bernard says. But climate change has also generally made it easier to be organic, he adds.

Bernard hired Jean-Michel Comme – famous for his organic and biodynamic direction at Château Pontet-Canet in Pauillac – as consultant three years ago, and the estate makes its own compost teas and biodynamic preparations for soil fertility and plant health.

All properties, from Domaine de Chevalier to Clos des Lunes, will be certified organic for white wine this year and for red in 2024. Domaine de Chevalier is currently about 70% biodynamic.

Value for money

Industry observers often highlight Chevalier’s keen pricing.

Matthew O’Connell, CEO of the LiveTrade trading platform at Bordeaux Index in London, remarks: ‘Domaine de Chevalier offers excellent value in the context of high-quality Bordeaux and, while the wines have a good following, we think there is room for popularity to increase.

‘To an extent, we think the high scores the wines receive are perhaps somewhat unnoticed by the market.’

Domaine de Chevalier wines are ‘made for the long-term, rather than for current trends, views or scores’, adds Jeremy Stockman, managing director of Watson’s Wine in Hong Kong. ‘I think about how Olivier Bernard serves blind 40- or 50-year-old bottles and enjoys surprising us with such tastings.’

Finally, Ben Giliberti, education director for importer Calvert Woodley in Washington D.C., says: ‘Domaine de Chevalier is still rather underrated. When a lot of Graves went full-ripe, oaky and modern, Domaine de Chevalier maintained its classically restrained style; it is arguably the best and most exciting Pessac-Léognan after Haut-Brion and La Mission Haut-Brion.’

See tasting notes and scores for 12 top white and red wines from Domaine de Chevalier

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With the close of the 2022 Bordeaux en primeur campaign last week, collectors now await the châteaux to reveal their prices. Meanwhile, demand for the 2021 Burgundies remains very strong thanks to an unusually small harvest.

Top-tier Bordeaux and white Burgundy are among the world’s most expensive wine investments – the majority of which trade perpetually on the secondary market and rarely enjoyed. Or if you do buy to drink them, you need to wait a good five to 10 years from the vintage.

Not so Margaret River in Western Australia, home to superlative Chardonnays and Cabernet Sauvignon-dominant reds as well as Sauvignon Blanc–Semillon blends that are delicious drinking on release but which also age gracefully for 20, 30 or more years. And not to mention a mere fraction of the price of their French counterparts.

Scroll down for tasting notes and scores of 14 Margaret River icon wines from top vintages

This was aptly demonstrated at a tasting entitled ‘Wild, Windswept & World Class’, where winemakers from seven renowned Margaret River estates joined in virtually to showcase one of their cuvées from two heralded vintages.

Five winemakers selected their 2018 and 2010 vintages. Keith Mugford and Moss Wood’s Cabernet Sauvignon, Vanya Cullen with Cullen Wines’ Diana Madeline, Tim Lovett with Leeuwin Estate’s Art Series Chardonnay, Virginia Willcock and Vasse Felix’s Heytesbury Chardonnay and Glenn Goodall and Xanadu’s Reserve Chardonnay.

Goodall said that while it was inevitable that consumers – and winemakers themselves – would look for similarities or differences between Margaret River Chardonnay and those from the grape’s French homeland, it wasn’t always useful. ‘Burgundy is so diverse,’ he said of the styles and appellations. ‘There are so many ways you can compare and contrast, so it’s far more relevant that we look at ourselves.’

He said a classic Margaret River Chardonnay would showcase ‘purity and clarity of fruit, crisp acidity and saline minerality in youth, then with age opens up with savoury characters at 20 years and tertiary ones at 30 years’.

Bordeaux-style reds and whites

For his Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon pair, Julian Langworthy of Deep Woods chose 2018 too, but wanted to single out the 2014, which won the Jimmy Watson trophy for Australia’s top young red wine.

Describing his earlier career, when working a stage at Bordeaux first-growth Château Haut-Brion in Pessac-Léognan, Langworthy said: ‘I mainly ate foie gras and did a few pump overs. But I learnt a lot. I learnt that we have something very special in Margaret River, especially with Cabernet Sauvignon. We are capable of making, if not already making, some of the world’s best Cabernets.’

Indeed, Vanya Cullen admitted that if she had her time over she would focus solely on Cabernet Sauvignon-dominant wines, as the grape delivered such a ‘pure expression of site’.

Luke Joliffe of Stella Bella, meanwhile, highlighted the 2019 and 2014 vintages of his structured yet fleshy Suckfizzle Sauvignon Blanc-Semillon. ‘It’s always very Sauvignon Blanc dominant to start – lime and zesty, crunchy fruit,’ he said. ‘But with time the Semillon starts to sing. It’s critical to the longevity of the wine, and gives that toasty, praline, brioche note.’

Four top vintages

Margaret River’s unique coastal location between the Indian and Southern Oceans moderates temperatures more than the heat spikes experienced in the eastern states, meaning growing seasons here are remarkably consistent. This combination of Mediterranean climate and maritime influence ensures grapes achieve physiological ripeness in almost every vintage.

The 2018 vintage is considered the best of the past decade for Cabernet Sauvignon in particular. Not only was there a ‘mega blossom’ of Marri trees, whose abundant pollen lured the birds away from the grapes, but a long, dry, warm summer ensured perfect ripening, fine tannins and bright acidity.

There was a similarly dry, warm growing season in 2010, ending with a late and extended cool harvest, that delivered fresh natural acidity and fruit intensity, especially in the Chardonnays.

An excellent growing season in 2014 – another year with abundant Marri blossom reducing bird damage – saw great elegance and aromatic intensity in Sauvignon Blanc-Semillon blends and ageworthy reds with balanced tannins.

Disease pressure made the long, late, cooler 2019 vintage trickier for growers, but those who managed the conditions delivered white wines similar to those in 2017, with vibrant flavour expression and crisp acidity.

Margaret River icon wines from top vintages

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There is an abundance of well-known South American wines that are capable of long ageing.

These include icons such as Almaviva and Nicolás Catena. However, I want to shine a light on some less well-known bottles I’ve found that you may not have heard of, but are certainly wines for the long haul that can still evolve beautifully over time.

I like to call it relic hunting.

Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores for 12 ageworthy South American wines

It’s a game I play every time I go to a wine shop while I’m in South America. Looking beyond the polished bottles on the front row, I rummage in the back aiming for those covered in dust or with tired labels.

In a small mini-market in Argentina’s remote wetlands I found a Terrazas de los Andes Chardonnay 2010 for less than £2… I nabbed that, and later delighted in its oily texture with a plate of cured jabali (wild boar).

In a restaurant near Chile’s Torres del Paine park I once found a Carmen Reserve 1999 and, much to the waiter’s surprise, enjoyed the whole bottle to myself over a dinner of guanaco (a larger version of a llama). It was so old that the label read Grande Vidure, years before it was renamed Carmenère, but the wine was far from old: spicy, energetic and delicious.

In a wine shop in Mendoza two blocks from my house, I found a Mendel Semillon 2013 for a third of its usual price. After popping home to have a quick sample, I came back with a trolley and took all of the 11 bottles left. I still kick myself for drinking those so fast, but the heady notes of lemon peel and honey with piercing acidity were irresistible.

I probably shouldn’t share this information because I’ll be deeply upset when I can’t play relic hunter anymore. But for the meantime, South America’s wines are being sold and served scandalously young – with older vintages wrongly being sent to the back of the shelf.

Without an en primeur system, or fine wine collectors either, there’s little incentive for wineries to hold back their wines and delay often much-needed income. There’s also still a misconception that many of South America’s wines can’t age.

Although the sunny climates in most of Argentina and Chile do make wines approachable in their youth, that does not mean that these wines aren’t ageworthy; in fact, they most certainly can be. And today more than ever, South America’s winemakers are producing wines that are worthy of holding back to taste in their prime of maturity.

Semillon makes a stand

On a visit to Lagarde winery in Luján de Cuyo you won’t leave the cellar without hearing the story of the 1942 Semillon.

By accident, an entire 1,800-litre oak cask was left filled with a 1942 vintage of dry Semillon wine and forgotten about for half a century. On its rediscovery in 1991, it was bottled as a special release and has served as one of the greatest testimonies to the ageability of South American white wines ever since.

The modern-day champion of Semillon in Argentina, though, is undoubtedly Roberto de la Mota. He started out in his winemaking career producing Semillon along with Chenin Blanc and Chardonnay with his father Raúl de la Mota at Bodega Weinert in the late 1980s.

But although the variety had lost favour in Argentina since, dwindling from over 5,500ha to just 600ha today, in 2009 de la Mota took up the mantle again. He has been making Semillon for his Mendel label ever since, waving the flag for this under-appreciated variety.

‘We have many old vines of Semillon in Mendoza, and really excellent-quality Semillon in cooler parts of the Uco Valley,’ explains de la Mota, who makes his wine from 70-year-old vines in Altamira. ‘The cool climate with the limestone soils give us very fresh acidity and strong personality, capable of long ageing.’

Several others have joined the Semillon mission. These include the Michelini family, Nieto Senetiner and Altocedro in Mendoza; Matías Riccitelli, Humberto Canale and Marcelo Miras in Río Negro. In Chile: Carmen and Santa Rita in Apalta; Bouchon and Longaví in Maule; and Roberto Henríquez and Leo Erazo in Itata.

Not only does the high acidity make these wines ageworthy but the concentration found in the old vines adds to the complexity and length of these outstanding wines.

Chardonnay for the long haul

However, it isn’t only old-vine Semillon that is proving its great potential to age.

Chardonnay is also a worthy contender. It was on a mission to make great Chardonnay that US winemaker Paul Hobbs was first brought to Argentina in 1989 by the Catena family, at the eve of Argentina’s quality revolution.

‘Even then I could see there was potential in the Chardonnay fruit – even if the winemaking needed a radical change,’ says Hobbs.

Today he makes several single-vineyard Chardonnay wines at Viña Cobos. ‘There are some extraordinary old vines, such as our 80-year-old Zingaretti estate in the Uco Valley, and great sites to plant new Chardonnay vines as well,’ he adds.

New vines of Chardonnay have, in particular, redefined the calibre of South American white wines in recent years. The combination of identifying great terroir with a modern, sensitive approach in the cellar has led to some of South America’s greatest and most ageworthy wines today.

They include Errazuriz’s Las Pizzaras from Aconcagua, Catena Zapata’s White Bones from Gualtallary and Bodega Chacra’s Chardonnay from Río Negro. While from Limarí the wines of Tabalí, Reta and Amelia will all no doubt still fend for themselves after decades in the cellar.

Following in the footsteps of Chardonnay, there is a great impulse happening across Argentina, Chile and Uruguay to make ageworthy white wines and blends from other key varieties including Chenin Blanc, Albariño, Marsanne, Roussanne, Viognier and Sauvignon Blanc. The fruits of which I’m sure we’ll enjoy in the years to come.

Reds built to last

Before the 225-litre French barrique became popular in South America in the 1990s, most of the red wines were made in large vats or foudres and aged significantly before release.

Some producers, including Bodegas Weinert, Carmelo Patti and Bodegas López in Mendoza, never stopped making wine this way.

Weinert’s current Cask Selection release is vintage 2012. Carmelo’s current UK release of Cabernet Sauvignon is 2007 and López has re-released its 1983 vintage of Montchenot.

While these are prime examples of a traditional approach still holding great promise for the future, the wines of the ‘modern school’ in South American winemaking are also coming of age now.

Complex and classy Bordeaux blends from top crus in Chile, Argentina and Uruguay – such as Viñedo Chadwick, Almaviva, Don Melchor, Nicolás Catena, Lindaflor, Cheval des Andes, Balasto and Monte Vide Eu – may still be released far too early, but they age gracefully in the cellar for those patient enough to wait.

Tasting these older vintages leaves no doubt of the potential for ageing – both in cask and bottle – that South American red Bordeaux blends have.

Beyond Bordeaux varieties and French barriques, there’s another movement underway seeking to optimise the continent’s Mediterranean varieties and returning to large-format ageing vessels. Marcelo Retamal is one of these returnees.

‘Before French barriques, we used these large old vats made from rauli (a native Chilean tree), so it’s nothing new,’ explains Retamal, who was head winemaker at De Martino from 1996 until 2021. ‘I now prefer larger format foudres and cement because we have less of an oak impact, but great conditions for long ageing of red wines.’

His Mediterranean red blends, including Syrah, Garnacha and Mourvèdre, from Viñedos de Alcohuaz in high-altitude Elqui, spend up to five years in cask or concrete. Bottles such as his Pingo Pingo Carignan, with 2015 as the current release, show the great vivacity that these wines retain and only hint at the long life yet to come.

Old-vine reds

Old vines of Carignan further south, in Maule, are also at the heart of some of the most exciting ageworthy red wines coming from Chile.

The association and quasi-appellation of VIGNO, Vignerons of Carignan, was set up to celebrate these dry-farmed old vines but also with a minimum two-year ageing requirement — one which is often far surpassed.

On a recent tasting of the VIGNO collective’s 2010 vintage, I can assure you these wines are still relative infants, with dense, compact aromas and a tense tannin and acid structure built to last. They are also often a bargain, giving anyone an ample opportunity to build a long-lasting wine collection.

Whether Carignan or Cabernet Sauvignon, there are a host of South American reds that will stand the test of time. As with the white wines, we just need to have the patience as a market to give them time to shine.

Until then, you’ll find me lurking at the back of dusty wine shelves hunting down some of these priceless gems.

See tasting notes and scores for 12 ageworthy South American wines

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On 22 March 2022, the 2019 vintage of Château d’Yquem will be released. This is a later launch than normal, following Pierre Lurton’s announcement last September that the new release would be held back in order to launch LMVH’s new ‘Lighthouse’ project.

At a tasting in London on 9 February 2022, cellarmaster Sandrine Garbay and LVMH’s sales and marketing director, Mathieu Jullien, introduced the new concept, the 2019 vintage, and a range of older vintages for comparison.

Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores for Château d’Yquem 2019 plus four older vintages

Making Yquem accessible

The Lighthouse project is yet another initiative attempting to solve the age-old conundrum of how to encourage wine lovers to drink more sweet wine.

The quality of the finest Sauternes, Tokaji or Trockenbeerenauslese is not in doubt, neither is the appeal of the wines, once tasted. The issue is when and how often consumers find the right occasion to open a bottle and discover the nectar within.

LMVH’s new approach is based on the premise that every wine consumer should have the opportunity to taste Yquem once in their lifetime.

The thinking is that youthful Yquem has a hugely appealing charm with sweet, ripe fruit expressed in its most vivid way, so the best time to introduce consumers is when the wine is at its freshest. This approach may not appeal to some sweet wine purists, but the allure of the 2019 vintage was nonetheless very evident at the tasting.

This Lighthouse programme sees Yquem being served by the glass at top restaurants and venues around the world. So far these include Caprice at the Four Seasons Hotel in Hong Kong, Cipriani in Venice, and Spago in Beverly Hills. Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, Annabel’s, Portland and NoMad are taking part the UK.

Sommeliers are encouraging diners to sample the wine either before or during their meal, rather than at the end. Costing £40-£70 a glass, it will be interesting to see how the initiative pans out.

A change in direction

What was clear from the tasting is that Yquem remains at the pinnacle of the finest sweet wines in the world. Sandrine Garbay, who first joined Yquem as a quality controller in 1994, introduced the 2019, along with the 2017 and its dry sibling Y d’Yquem, before moving on to Yquem 2007, 1999 and 1989.

Garbay emphasised how Yquem has gradually changed from the Alexandre de Lur Saluces days, with maturation in wood reduced from three years in 1989 to just two in 2017 and 2019.

‘Yquem is now more focused on preservation of fruit intensity, making the wine more open when young,’ she said.

The estate has stepped up its drive towards organic viticulture, with the entire estate operating under organic principles from 2020.

Verdict

The 2019 Yquem is hugely impressive and a joy to drink. I have no doubt that any consumer tasting the young wine will remember it, but it remains to be seen whether the Lighthouse approach delivers the benefits anticipated.

In some ways, it seems a shame not to be able to see how Yquem evolves and changes over the decades.

The 2007 vintage was a stunning example of Sauternes at the top of its game, while 1999 showed how good Yquem can be even in a difficult vintage.

1989 provided an insight into a previous era of wine production, yet excited with mellow, mature flavours, while still having the energy to age for another two decades.

See tasting notes and scores for Château d’Yquem 2019 plus four older vintages:

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Duckhorn Portfolio said it has acquired about 20 hectares (50 acres) of Napa Valley vineyards via separate deals.

This includes 16ha of the Stanly Ranch vineyard in Los Carneros and the 4ha Red Wing vineyard in St Helena, said the group, listed under the ‘Napa’ ticker on the New York Stock Exchange.

‘As our portfolio has evolved to include 10 renowned luxury wineries, our commitment to having a robust estate vineyard programme continues to be central to ensuring the exceptional quality of our wines,’ said Duckhorn’s CEO and president Alex Ryan.

At Stanly Ranch, Duckhorn said its new vineyards constituted two, 8ha plots planted to Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, sitting adjacent to its Migration winery and another 4ha of vines already owned by the group.

‘Featuring Haire clay loam soils and a cool climate influenced by the site’s proximity to San Pablo Bay, The Duckhorn Portfolio’s Stanly Ranch vineyards are ideal for Burgundian varietals,’ said the group.

It plans to use its new vines for Migration’s cool-climate Chardonnay and Pinot Noir wines.

Further north, Duckhorn said it has sourced Sauvignon Blanc from the Red Wing vineyard in St Helena for more than 15 years.

It plans to replace a block of Merlot in the vineyard with Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon, ‘to support demand for Duckhorn Vineyards’ acclaimed Sauvignon Blanc’.

This wine will also benefit from grapes sourced from the next-door Alton Family Vineyard, after Duckhorn said it has signed a long-term lease deal.

Duckhorn will rename Red Wing the Wolfe Vineyard after the property’s previous owners. It also plans to rename the Stanly Ranch vineyards.

Financial details of the deals were not disclosed.

Duckhorn Portfolio said its estate vineyard programme now includes nearly 121 hectares (298 acres) in Napa Valley.

It said it also has 202 hectares (500 acres) in other north coast California appellations, plus 33 hectares (82 acres) in the Central Coast’s Mt. Harlan appellation and eight hectares (20 acres) at the Longwinds Vineyard on Red Mountain in Washington State.

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What are the key differences between the two well-established sweet wines made with botrytis-infused grapes?

The perfect mesoclimate for botrytis

The smooth onset of botrytis cinerea on white wine grapes requires certain growing conditions. Humidity in the early morning combined with aerated, sunny afternoons in autumn is a must for the fungus to remain benign and develop complex flavours as the berries shrivel to a perfect status.

Needless to say, both Sauternes of south Bordeaux, France and the Tokaj of northeastern Hungary enjoy the ideal terroir for botrytis, allowing the noble fungus to puncture microscopic holes through grape skins and nurture some of the world’s top expressions of these golden, lusciously sweet wines, which are capable of ageing for decades.

In the case of Sauternes, the cooler tributary Ciron feeds into the warmer Garonne, creating misty mornings in its communes and allowing the onset of botrytis in autumn. Meanwhile, the warm, sunny afternoons reduce the moisture and prevent the fungus from going rogue.

Likewise, the Tisza and Bodrog rivers that meet in Tokaj are the reasons behind the foggy autumn mornings that trigger the inception of botrytis, with the sunny and breezy afternoons safeguarding the healthy development of the fungus.

Despite sharing a similar mesoclimate, producers of Sauternes and Tokaji Aszú are using different grape varieties and taking a diverse approach in winemaking to create their own versions of ‘liquid gold’.

Choice of varieties

Sémillon is the primary grape for Sauternes due to its thin skins, which are highly susceptible to botrytis. The grape tends to provide a rich, textured body in addition to beeswax, citrus and honeyed stone fruit flavours to the sweet wine. Sauvignon Blanc is its crucial blending partner, providing fresh acidity and a lift to the palate. Sometimes Muscadelle is also added to provide further aroma complexity.

Furmint, on the other hand, is the diva of the Tokaj wine region. This versatile variety has the ability to go from bone-dry to lusciously sweet, with the high, mineral acidity being its ‘hallmark character’, according to Caroline Gilby MW, wine writer and consultant specialising in Central and Eastern European wines.

Also read: Furmint – A versatile variety to watch

When making Tokaji Aszú, Furmint is ‘typically supported by Hárslevelű and Muscat to add fruitiness and fragrance’, says Gilby.

Production methods

Making naturally botrytized wine can be costly and extremely labour-intensive, as it demands careful, manual selection in the field. The shrivelled berries have to be picked by hand only when they are ready. Also, producers may risk insufficient onset or even no-show of botrytis when the weather condition is less ideal.

The classic production method of Sauternes involves carefully pressing these precious, noble rot-infected berries, before painstakingly going through a slow fermentation process, often in partial or all-new barriques, until the alcohol level reaches around 14%.

Also read: Best Sauternes and Barsac 2020 wines tasted en primeur

Winemakers in Tokaj, however, adopt an ancient, arguably more flexible approach in extracting the botrytis flavours.

In fact, the first written records of the Aszú (the Hungarian word for shrivelled and botrytis-affected berries) method can be traced back to 1571, far before noble rot was recognised as a legitimate method of making sweet wines in France.

‘Sauternes are made from berries that are still juicy and can be pressed and fermented. The Aszú berries, however, are so raisined and dry. If you try to press them, you get a trickle of thick syrup, so sweet it barely ferments at all,’ explains Gilby.

Therefore, in order to extract sweetness and flavours, Aszú producers have to soak the sweet paste of botrytis-influenced, shrivelled berries in either grape juice, young wine or fermenting must. The wine is then aged in barrels under oxidative conditions for at least two years.

Indeed the word ‘Puttony(os)’ used as a unit to describe the sweetness of Tokaji Aszú refers to the bucket traditionally used to collect Aszú berries. Though today the sweetness of Tokaji is no longer measured by the number of Puttonyos added but based on residual sugar, said Gilby.

Read more: What is Aszú and why is it special?

Tell them apart in blind tastings

If we are to blind taste quality Sauternes and Tokaji Aszú, what should we look for to tell them apart? Stephen Brook, contributing editor to Decanter, provides his thoughts.

‘In the past, the various quality levels of Aszú – 3, 4, 5, and 6 Puttonyos – were defined by strict rules requiring minimum levels of residual sugar, acidity, and sugar-free extract. They no longer exist in a rigorous form, so there is now a far greater stylistic variation among Aszú wines. But two trends are discernible,’ says Brook.

‘First, the wines are far sweeter than they used to be. The same is true of Sauternes, but Aszú wines have a much higher acidity, giving them a different character. Moreover, most Aszú wines used to be deliberately oxidative. There was much debate about whether oxidation was intrinsic to Aszú, but today few would argue that case.

‘So Aszú wines are no more likely to be oxidative in style than good Sauternes. In short, it is becoming increasingly difficult to tell the two wines apart, although the higher acidity and raciness of Aszú wines remains a major difference.’

For the first year in over a decade, I haven’t been based in South America due to the borders being tightly shut until November 2021.

That, however, didn’t slow my enthusiasm for tasting new releases – even if the shipping container chaos did! Nor did the pandemic slow down South America’s most creative winemakers, who continued to forge ahead with inexhaustible innovation.

Scroll down to see tasting notes and score Amanda Barnes’ top 10 South American wines of 2021

What has excited me most about South America’s wines over the last couple of years is the restless search for wines reflecting interesting terroirs, purer regional expression and greater freshness and transparency.

In my blind tasting of South American Chardonnay wines in June, the greater restraint of oak with more focus on purity of fruit and mineral backbone resonated strongly.

Some of the top wines came from notable producers in Chile’s Limarí Valley (Tabalí, Amelia) and Mendoza’s Uco Valley (Catena Zapata, Viña Cobos) which are, at least in my mind, the two grand crus of South American Chardonnay. But we are increasingly seeing excellent Chardonnay wines from southern Chile and Argentina, one of which makes my discovery list this year – for its great value as well as expression.

Excellent value and purity of place is also the case for the incredible new Tabalí Pai Pinot Noir and the new Cobos Vinculum Chardonnay. They both make my list too. Believe me, these wines are relative bargains for their quality.

Old vine varieties

Other bottles I can’t get enough of are wines made from the really old vines of Chile and Argentina.

I’ve long been a fan of the País wines coming from Chile, which are getting fresher and more elegant by the year (look out for Miguel Torres’ Millapoa, launching in mid-2022). But for my wines of 2021, I’m going with three other old-vine varieties that provided a delicious vinous kick for me last year: old-vine Semillon, Cinsault and Chenin Blanc.

I have also included some of the top scoring wines from our Premium Argentine Malbec Panel Tasting last summer, which reflect the hunt for distinctive mountain terroirs (Matervini) and fresh yet silky expressions of Gualtallary (Bousquet).

I have also picked a few gems from Uruguay from my ‘Beyond Tannat’ article, published in the September issue, a country which continues to excite me in its distinctive identity and constant quest to show a totally different face to South American wine.

This selection of wines are all currently on the market, but having touched down in my home turf again in November, I can tell you there’s a lot more to come. South America’s winemakers haven’t been twiddling their thumbs during the pandemic!

Amanda Barnes’ top 10 South American wines of 2021

The South America Wine Guide written by Amanda Barnes was published in 2021 and features in the Decanter pick of Best wine & spirits books for 2021

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The Hunter Valley vineyard property has been put up for sale as industry veteran David Hook and his partner, Sherry Watt, seek to cut down on their workload, a listing statement said.

The news comes around one month after well-known name Tulloch Wines was reportedly put up for sale in the Australian region, north of Sydney.

Hunter Valley is ‘undergoing significant generational change’, according to a press statement on the sale of David Hook Wines, which has been producing wines for more than 35 years.

‘It’s always with mixed emotions that these properties come to market after so much hard work, but equally it represents a very exciting opportunity for the next generation,’ said Adam Morris, listing agent for David Hook Wines and affiliated to Christie’s International Real Estate.

Lying on 103 hectares of land, David Hook Wines includes two residences, a winery and an eight-hectare ‘ultra-premium’ vineyard first planted in 1982.

Grape varieties include the classic trio of Semillon, Chardonnay and Shiraz, but also 0.5ha each of Pinot Grigio and Barbera that were planted in 2018.

A further 50 hectares have been ‘earmarked’ for future planting, and regulatory approval has been obtained for a cellar door to welcome visitors and wine tasters, according to the listing.

An asking price has not been disclosed, however. The vendors ‘wish the price guide to remain confidential and only disclosed to qualified buyers,’ said Morris, who is a specialist vineyard broker in the area.

While some wine properties around the world may be sold more as ‘hobby’ vineyard estates, this listing may present an opportunity for buyers seeking a more commercial or substantial operation.

‘The focus [at David Hook Wines] has been squarely on incremental improvement in the vineyard, making excellent wines and selling through an established distribution network,’ said Morris.

For existing wine industry players, this listing could be a ‘highly lucrative turnkey operation which will comfortably fund itself under current interest rate settings’, he added.

Speaking to Decanter via email, Morris said that there were a range of Hunter Valley wine properties, potentially presenting different options for prospective buyers should any come up for sale.

These include larger family-held estates but also hotel and hospitality businesses that produce wine as part of their operations, as well as vineyard estates more at the ‘lifestyle’ end of the market – the latter potentially attracting buyers looking to move up from Sydney.

See more wine estates in our property section

Sauternes is one of those wines that can be enjoyed young but in good vintages can age and evolve for decades. In the past, it wasn’t so accessible when young, often due to high doses of sulphur dioxide at bottling, which suppressed many of the wine’s characteristics, in particular its fruit.

Today, SO2 additions are more tightly regulated, and winemakers prefer to use the minimum in order to preserve the wine’s intrinsic freshness.

Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores for 10 great Sauternes to drink now

Even so, it’s usually worth giving a Sauternes at least five years in bottle before pulling the cork.

As the wine matures, high acidity and any flagrant new oak aromas will usually subside or integrate. Depending on the vintage, the wine will develop more opulence and nuance as it ages, so the primary expression won’t be of simple fruitiness, but will show more complexity.

The following vintages can all be broached now, and the 1999 and 2005 should not be kept too much longer – while, in contrast, the 2001 and 2011 are still in their prime.

2011

This vintage delivered a variable summer that was often cloudy and damp, especially in July. Warmer weather in late August brought early botrytis infection, while the sunshine concentrated the fruit. Yquem began its harvest on12 September and completed it on 5 October, comparing the quality of the vintage to 2009.

Nairac, unusually, was able to pick the entire crop over the last eight days of September. The cooler summer kept acidity levels high, which helped balance the very concentrated fruit. Yields were above average at about 20hl/ha, except in Bommes, where there had been hail over Easter.

Many of the best wines in 2011 were from Barsac, as the following notes confirm.

2009

The sun-drenched summer, with its cool nights, offered ideal growing conditions in Sauternes as in the rest of Bordeaux.

Rain fell just at the right time in mid-September, which caused botrytis infection to explode. Moreover, the grapes were fully ripe by this time. If anything, they were too ripe, and estates had to avoid picking grapes with very high potential alcohol levels, as had occurred in 1990. This also meant that the harvest was swift as there was nothing to be gained by leaving richly botrytised fruit on the vines.

Climens picked 93% of its crop in eight days. By mid-October the harvest was over, just as stormy weather arrived in the region.

The wines were of high quality, and careful blending ensured that alcohol levels were not excessive.

2005

A hot and dry year, which resulted in great red wines but was more problematic for Sauternes, which needs humidity to encourage noble rot.

There was some rain in mid-September, but cool winds kept botrytis at bay. Some Sauvignon was picked in late September, and further pickings (mostly Semillon) took place during October, which provided an Indian summer. With cool nights and morning mists, conditions were ideal for the development of noble rot.

It was a prolonged harvest, but the fine weather allowed châteaux to pick each plot at the right moment. The quality of the botrytis was excellent, but the acidity was relatively low, so this is probably not a vintage for long cellaring. Yields were generous at about 20hl/ha.

2001

The vines matured fast, and by late August the Sauvignon was ripe. While a dry, early September delayed the onset of botrytis, it helped conserve the high acidity in the grapes. Rain fell on 20 September and botrytis infection began, while wind and sunshine concentrated the fruit on the vine.

Sauvignon was picked first, and noble rot continued to spread after rain showers in early October. The very warm but damp conditions were perfect for botrytis.

For most estates the harvest was completed by mid-October, although a few, including Yquem, made a final foray at the end of the month. The wines were fresh and distinctly sweet, often with residual sugar levels of up to 160g/L.

The balance and energy of the wines generated a rapturous reception from critics, which has proved justified.

1999

Sauvignon Blanc ripened fast and botrytised fast, and many grapes were picked in the first half of September. Rain followed, but by early October it was possible to begin picking the Semillon.

Downpours during the harvest period complicated the vintage: some pickings had to be rejected, and rigorous sorting was widespread. The fruit that went into the presses was very concentrated and had pure flavours, and growers were happy with the quality overall.

Indeed, Yquem compared it to 1990, but in retrospect that may have been a touch overenthusiastic. Selection meant that this was a fairly small crop, although Yquem reported close to normal yields. However, La Tour Blanche ended up with modest yields of only 7hl/ha.

See tasting notes and scores for 10 great Sauternes to drink now

The recommended wines are listed in score order by descending vintage and were tasted between 2018 and 2021.

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Purple Reign, sold by Western Australia-based Masstengo, gets its vibrant lilac hue from the infusion of the botanicals, which are also designed to minimise the use of sulphites.

Bottled at 12% abv and sold in Australia for A$21 per bottle, the wine is a blend of grapes sourced from Western Australia’s Margaret River and Great Southern wine regions.

According to the Purple Reign website, it has ‘a hint of grass and a touch of minerals, with a perfect balance of natural acidity and freshness, complemented by a crisp, dry finish’.

The site adds: ‘The palate shows a textural mouthfeel, which lingers to a refreshing, earthy finish, with a subtle, flinty flourish.’

Purple Reign was launched at the 2019 Royal Easter Show in Sydney, with the entire initial production run selling out before the end of the show, Masstengo said.

Now the company has launched a Purple Reign dry sparkling wine and Free Reign, a more conventional-looking organic and preservative-free Shiraz from Margaret River. Both are priced at about A$25 per bottle.

Masstengo was established ‘to push the boundaries of winemaking with an aim to remove synthetic additives that cause harm in humans, such as sulphites, and replace them with safer, more beneficial alternatives’, the company website says.

Founder Tim Macnamara studied for a Masters in environmental sustainability and worked as a wine representative, while business partner Ross Stewart has a science background and previously specialised in organic, biodynamic and preservative-free wine.

Blue wines

In 2016, the Spanish makers of a blue ‘wine’ called Gïk fell foul of EU regulators, who ruled that they could not label it as wine. Gïk was produced using red and white grapes from Castilla la Mancha and Rioja, and was infused with a plant-based dye and sweeteners.

In 2018, another blue wine ‘Vindigo’ was launched in France.

Scientists claim to ‘re-create Montelena 1973’ with no grapes (2016)

Often the ‘poor relation’ when considering Bordeaux wines, the region’s dry whites are certainly on the up.

Given Bordeaux’s red wine dominance today, it is hard to believe that until the 1950s this was a white wine region.

Entre-Deux-Mers, and the Sémillon grape, dominated with vast quantities of lacklustre whites produced using traditional winemaking methods. The devastating frost of 1956 changed everything, with large areas replanted to red varieties and a new approach to the market.

Scroll down for tasting notes and scores on 20 Bordeaux dry white wines worth seeking out

Back in 1990, while I was discussing the market for white Bordeaux with Charles Sichel, export director for Maison Sichel, he observed ‘producers can’t give white Bordeaux away – it’s all about red’.

Today it’s a different story. ‘There is a much better understanding now of how to grow white grapes, and this has been combined with modern winemaking techniques. So much of this is down to Denis Dubourdieu,’ adds Sichel.

Improving Bordeaux dry whites

The late, great Professor Dubourdieu was certainly instrumental in raising the bar for white wine production.

Better site selection and understanding the ripening process for white grapes were key, with control of picking dates balancing ripeness while preserving acidity. The use of stainless steel for cool fermentations improved aromatics and purity, while oak usage became more subtle.

At the premium end of the market, fermentation and maturation in barrel is still the preferred method, with the top Bordeaux dry white wines today demonstrating a great balance between finesse and power.

Market conditions also changed in the 1990s, with the arrival of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. Bordeaux rose to the challenge and, although still behind Sémillon in total area planted, Sauvignon Blanc has transformed the landscape for dry white Bordeaux.

Even stellar red wine producers such as the Guinaudeau family of Château Lafleur in Pomerol are strong advocates of Sauvignon Blanc, planting Sancerre clones on the limestone soils of Fronsac.

However, plantings on the Right Bank, dry whites from estates in Sauternes, and the premium whites of top Haut-Médoc châteaux such as Mouton Rothschild and Margaux, sit behind those from Graves and Pessac-Léognan in terms of importance.

Here Châteaux Haut-Brion and La Mission Haut-Brion lead the field, producing white wines to match the greatest Burgundy; Domaine de Chevalier is close behind.

Pessac-Léognan whites marry power with elegance; subtle oak with layers of flavour; mineral and floral notes; ripe stone fruits with fresh citrus zest.

These are wines to savour now, with the best keeping for many years. And, unlike the inexorable rise in price for top Burgundy, many seem relative bargains.

20 Bordeaux dry white wines to find and enjoy

Wines tasted by Decanter experts in the past year. Introduction copy first published in Decanter’s Bordeaux guide 2019.

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New World wine is a useful shorthand in the absence of anything better, but it can seem strangely inappropriate when talking about vineyards dating back 330 years and a wine, Constantia, that was already a phenomenon in the 18th century, at which time European courts fell over themselves to buy it. The Cape’s most famous wine is an exception – is unique, in fact – but there are other producers outside Europe who have significant history under their belts. The Campbells have been making wine in Rutherglen, Australia for 150 years and started their ‘rare solera’ back in the 1920s.

Even the groundbreaking De Bortoli Noble One was created in Australia nearly four decades ago. Paul Cluver in South Africa and Framingham in New Zealand have both been making botrytis Rieslings for more than 20 years. In contrast, the 2016 Canadian ice wine Rebel Pi is the debut vintage and, had this been a top 20, I might also have included one of the new Chinese ice wines.

As it is, I’ve chosen wines from Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa, made from eight separate grape varieties (counting two different Muscats) and, demonstrating the diversity at the top level, in five styles: lateharvest, botrytised, straw wine, solera-aged and ice wine. Botrytis Riesling was the hardest category to whittle down on my original long list, and I reluctantly had to let several go. You might expect there to be more botrytis Semillons modelled on Sauternes. Although Semillon plantings have been declining for decades, there’s still quite a lot of it, especially in Australia. What there’s less of are the necessary humid conditions to develop botrytis cinerea (noble rot: you can induce it, but the best producers don’t). It’s also a challenge to make, but then there’s not a sweet wine here that isn’t – either in the vineyard or the winery, but mostly in both.

Bravo to producers everywhere.

Framingham MARLBOROUGH, NEW ZEALAND

‘It takes some experience, and even after all these years of doing it, it still feels like guesswork!’ Dr Andrew Hedley, winemaker at Framingham since 2001, is talking about judging the degree of dehydration, and thus the amount of sugar there’ll be in the must, in

clusters with significant botrytis for his Noble Riesling. It may feel like guesswork, but the wines, and his global reputation for Riesling, speak for themselves. Whatever the year – and conditions weren’t right to make any botrytis wine in 2001 and 2010 – it’s never easy. Or, in his words, it’s ‘a pain in the ass to make’.

Picking is, necessarily, by hand and is selective even in botrytised sections of Framingham’s 38-year-old vineyard. It can drag on too (into July in 2012), involving as many as eight or nine picks. Keeping volatile acidity down during fermentation requires special techniques, clarification/filtration is multifold and the ‘bottling is the worst one of the year’. In short, he says, ‘you have to want to make these sorts of wines to do it well’.

Fortunately for us, he does.

Mullineux SWARTLAND, SOUTH AFRICA

‘With late-harvest wine, acid drops away as the grapes ripen. The beauty of straw wine,’ says Chris Mullineux, ‘is that acid and sugar both go up.’ Despite the Cape’s long history of sweet wine, straw wine – from grapes picked at normal ripeness then shrivelled naturally – only began in the late 1990s. The first vintage at Mullineux was 2008 and it now makes 10 barrels from about 30 tonnes of Chenin – ‘old vines that give really good acidity’. The volume is one reason why drying on straw matting became impractical: ‘If we spread the grapes out it would be the size of a rugby field.’ They now use ventilated wooden racks, placed in the shade, ‘otherwise the grapes go brown like Coca-Cola’. Drying takes three to four weeks, during which time both sugar and acid more-or-less double, leaving just 10-15 litres of juice from each 100kg of grapes. Fermentation, with natural yeasts, is very slow and long (six to nine months), at the end of which sugar is 240-300g/L, acidity is 10-11g/L and alcohol is 9.5%-11%.

Paul Cluver ELGIN, SOUTH AFRICA

The Cluver family didn’t plan to make a noble harvest Riesling. ‘It just happened. We realised we had quite a lot of botrytis and started making a dessert wine,’ says winemaker Andries Burger, Paul Cluver’s son-in-law.

That was 1998 and it was made every year up to 2014, when the family chose to focus solely on great vintages. ‘If it’s just good enough, then it’s not good enough,’ Burger notes. The only vintage since is 2017. Not only was the vintage good, he tried a new technique to improve texture: an essencia-style addition made from a tank of individually selected botrytised berries topped up with juice and fermented to 2% alcohol and about 600g/L residual sugar.

‘If the essencia opportunity occurs again, we’ll do it, but the cost is massive.’ Fortunately, the business model doesn’t rely on noble harvest Riesling. ‘If you take everything into account, it’s the one wine that doesn’t make money, but it adds something to our portfolio,’ says Burger, with his fingers firmly crossed for noble rot in 2020.

Campbells RUTHERGLEN, AUSTRALIA

In a world where wine styles are replicated from one continent to the next, it’s heartwarming that nowhere else can produce anything like the majestic sweet fortifieds of Rutherglen in northeast Victoria. John Campbell arrived here from Scotland in 1870 on the Merchant Prince. Today the fourth and fifth generations work alongside each other, led by Colin Campbell. Merchant Prince Rare Rutherglen Muscat, Campbells’ ultimate expression, was launched by Colin and his late brother Malcolm in 1983. It comes from the ‘rare solera’, which has an average age of 50 years and is topped up only every 10-15 years when it has reached 20° Baumé (above 400g/L sugar).

You might expect anything containing so much sugar to be cloying; however, the long, mellowing maturation of the Muscat à Petits Grains Rouges, the rejuvenating effect of the five-stage solera, Rutherglen’s significant day and night temperature differences and, not least, the Campbells house style, emphasising elegance and purity of raisined flavours, as well as richness and complexity, all coalesce in an extraordinarily multilayered, balanced liquid.

Klein Constantia , CONSTANTIA, SOUTH AFRICA

It’s easy to home in on the long history of Constantia and its glory days in the 18th and 19th centuries without realising that for 100 years the legendary raisined-grape dessert wine wasn’t made. Phylloxera saw it off in 1886 and it wasn’t until after the Jooste family bought the estate for a song in 1980 that it was recreated as Vin de Constance six years later – using Muscat de Frontignan vines selected, it is believed, from the original Constantia stock. It’s had a further boost since 2011, with a new winemaker, Matthew Day, another change of ownership, new plantings focused on quality clones, bush vines and experimental plots of Petit Mansen and Furmint, and a newcellar. The long-term aim is to improve quality and for Day that means balanced wine: ‘This is a wine that ages extremely well. The key is balance. You have to get the sugar, alcohol and acidity right.’ He is aiming for more consistent sugar and alcohol levels and has also lightened up on the oak to get a less evolved, less marmaladey character.

Greywacke MARLBOROUGH, NEW ZEALAND

After 25 years as chief winemaker putting Cloudy Bay and New Zealand Sauvignon on the global stage, Kevin Judd turned 50, thought ‘it’s now or never’ and left to set up on his own, naming Greywacke after the distinctive, rounded river stones in his first vineyard. Inevitably Greywacke is best known for its Sauvignon, but Judd has made seven wines from the outset, all in a ripe style, with a hands-off approach.

He likes ‘sweet wines that aren’t too sweet’, so the Botrytis Pinot Gris is typically 105-110g/L residual sugar, but it’s a lavishly flavoured wine. The shrivelled 2015 grapes – even smaller and more concentrated than usual – were handpicked on 8 June in an 18-year-old vineyard with a high proportion of the eponymous stones around Greywacke HQ. They were ‘squeezed rather than pressed overnight’ and fermented in old barrels, 60% spontaneously. Fermentation was eventually halted in September and the wine left in barrel until bottling in July 2016. Where will Judd be in 10 years’ time? ‘I’m happy with where we are now.’

Rebel Pi, OKANAGAN VALLEY, CANADA

Canadians are generous about promoting each other’s wines – anything to show unaware wine drinkers that Canada’s best are world class. Even so, some may raise an eyebrow on seeing Rebel Pi, Roussanne Ice Wine 2016 here. It’s the first vintage from a new producer with no previous involvement in wine – and it’s the world’s first Roussanne ice wine.

In view of those facts, it may be a relief to know that Jackie Fast, the London-based Canadian businesswoman behind it, didn’t make the wine. Pentâge in Penticton did, from its own Roussanne; Fast selected it with a team that includes sommeliers and winemakers. The next Rebel Pi ice wine isn’t Roussanne and it’s from Ontario because, for Fast, ‘it’s not about this ice wine from this place, it’s about how it’s made’. Once she discovered that ice wine was not the sweet, syrupy wine she thought it was, she ‘fell in love with the story, the risk, the craftsmanship’. She then set about ‘bringing the best ice wine of the year to the UK and beyond’ and telling its story. Taste it. You may well be surprised.

Seifried, NELSON, NEW ZEALAND

Chris and Heidi Seifried, two of the three siblings working with their parents in the business they founded in 1973, first made Nelson Sweet Agnes Riesling in 2006 and, although volumes vary, they can make it every year because it’s a late-harvest rather than a botrytis wine. Not much was produced in 2018, but there’s a lot of the recently bottled 2019 and the quality, according to Chris, is stunning. As their most awarded wine (not least in the DWWA), is there anything they could do to improve it?

‘We talk each year about putting it in neutral barriques for about six months to add complexity, but then we taste it and say, “No, we like it like this”. Oak would soften it, give it a bit more weight, but it would also take away a bit of the fruit character – the apricot and Christmas cake,’ explains Chris. So far, it’s showing some longevity. Chris sampled the 2009 recently and says it was ‘absolutely beautiful’. As for the 2018, a tighter, leaner, crisper vintage with lower sugar than most, he is confident it will age for 20 years. I’ll happily test that.

Peller Estates, NIAGARA PENINSULA, CANADA

Ice wine production started in the 1980s in Ontario, and Peller Estates’ oldest vines, planted 40 years ago, are among the Niagara Peninsula’s most senior for ice wine. Thanks to the

climate-moderating effect of the vineyards’ lakeside location, Peller has never missed a vintage of ice wine.

But moderate is a relative word here. Ice wine grapes have to be harvested at -8°C or colder. Peller’s winemaker, Katie Dickieson, goes for colder. ‘Minus 10°C is ideal,’ she says. ‘The grapes are even more frozen and the juice even more concentrated.’ * Yields are even lower, but she believes the flavour justifies the means – and all the other challenges of making ice wine, which include netting every vine to protect the grapes from birds and animals and coaxing sluggish yeasts to convert the extremely concentrated juice. The Peller style is ice wines to pair with food so, whether Vidal (80% of production), Riesling or Cabernet Franc, the focus is on refreshing acidity balancing slightly lower sugar and higher alcohol. But, again, it’s relative: the 2017 Vidal has 210g/L sugar, 9.1g/L acid and 11% alcohol.

De Bortoli, RIVERINA, AUSTRALIA

When Noble One, an opulent botrytis Semillon, was launched on an unsuspecting world in the early 1980s, often tasted with and outperforming top Sauternes, no region could have seemed a less likely source than the flat, fertile plains and hot, dry climate of Riverina. But that’s to overlook the autumn rain and fog, the humid mornings and dry afternoons. The botrytis cinerea is all naturally occurring.

‘We use the same vineyards each year, so the microflora is in the vineyard and we just need Mother Nature to give the right conditions at the right time,’ says winemaker Julie Mortlock. Mother Nature has failed only twice, ruining both 1989 and 2012 with rain. Residual sugar has ranged from 150-230g/L (2016 is at the upper end), alcohol is usually 10%-11%, and acidity is fine-tuned to balance the sweetness. Production remains very similar to how it was in 1982, but the style has evolved slightly – lightened by the use of some unoaked components in the blend.

Originally published in the January 2020 issue of Decanter magazine.

Top 10 New World sweet wines

Several non-wine geek friends were impressed when I served the same dry white that had been on the menu of a gala dinner in Versailles during Vinexpo 2020. They discovered just how tasty dry white Bordeaux could be. ‘This is so rich and aromatic,’ one remarked. ‘I want to try more white Bordeaux,’ another said.

The Château de Fieuzal Blanc AOC Pessac-Léognan 2015 vintage is one of 15 wines tasted for this article, but many more illustrate the extent to which consumers overlook Bordeaux’s dry whites, the best from the Graves region and especially from its northern appellation Pessac-Léognan.

Scroll down for Panos Kakaviatos’ top Bordeaux dry whites from the 2015 vintage

From Germany to the United States, by way of China and elsewhere, when consumers talk Bordeaux, red comes to mind, says Julien Boulard MW, wine educator in Nanning, China. ‘But if you speak of New Zealand or Germany, wine consumers automatically think white.’ And usually varietal, be it Riesling or Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc or Pinot Gris.

To think of a region as famous as Bordeaux to be dominated by one colour hides the sheer range of dry white styles at affordable prices that consumers get from Graves: from inexpensive and non-oaked, to more complex and oaked and from deep, dense and serious, to light, elegant and perfect for summer quaffing.

Encompassing over 5,000ha of vineyards, including Pessac-Léognan, the name ‘Graves’ reflects the region’s many heat retaining gravelly stones. But it also includes diverse sub soils – from soft sand and limestone to various clays – and differing elevations with cooler and warmer micro-climates that contribute to stylistic variety.

Quality has never been better, as each of these estates, among others, have become more precise in harvesting and vinification. For some, prices have not yet caught up with quality, thus it is an opportune time to focus on Graves.

Two principle grapes make the blend: Sémillon, which lends texture, white stone fruit and floral aspects and Sauvignon Blanc, known worldwide for its grassy, crispy citrus profile. But ‘oak seasoning adds complexity’, stresses wine educator and former Washington Post wine writer Ben Giliberti. That sets them apart from, say, Sancerre.

Classification

Although famous for its reds, beginning with Château Haut Brion, the Graves classification that dates back to 1959 also includes dry whites.

The best come from the region’s northern sector, which features all 16 classified wines: seven reds, three whites and six both red and white. This led to the separate Pessac-Léognan appellation established in 1987, which at that time counted 55 estates and just over 800ha under vine.

Today, some 75 estates cover over double that area, but the ratio of red to white is about 75 to 25. Top whites featured in this article start at a very affordable £20 a bottle, have great density and complexity and are aged in barrel. Many more wines from the southern Graves region are even less expensive and tend to use less or no oak for ageing.

The market

While tasting highly-rated Pessac-Léognan brands like Château Smith Haut Lafitte, Pape Clément and Domaine de Chevalier, importer Klaus Kneib always marvels at how ‘really good’ the wines are, with ‘Burgundy complexity’.

But in 25 years experience, Germany ‘has never had a high demand for them’. He is not sure why. ‘Maybe barrel aging puts off German consumers accustomed to fruitier styled whites? But they don’t mind barrel aged white Burgundy, so why should that be a problem for Bordeaux’, he wonders.

Of course, white Burgundy has had a much longer time to establish itself.

Famous brands sell because of notoriety for their red wines, says Jeremy Stockman of Watson’s Wine in Hong Kong. At ‘the very top’ is Haut Brion Blanc, given the celebrity status of its grand vin and the minute quantities of very expensive white wine produced there. Others include Château Smith Haut Lafitte, which at the time of the Graves classification, only produced red wine. Today it makes one of the top dry whites of Bordeaux.

But where pricier wines sell in upscale markets like Hong Kong, ‘great, everyday wines like Château Malartic Lagraviere don’t feature so much because our customers aren’t looking for that, which is a pity, as I love the style,’ says Hong Kong merchant Linden Wilkie.

Giliberti agrees; ‘Château Malartic Lagraviere has clearly upped its game, making terrific whites at a great price.’ Domaine de Chevalier, also known for its red wines, boasts a white which Giliberti considers ‘at the first growth level these days’.

Wines with especially excellent price/quality ratios include Château La Louvière, Château Carbonnieux, Château Latour Martillac, Château Bouscaut and Château Olivier.

And yet ‘there still lacks enough visibility and understanding of these wines by the American consumer’, says Shaun Bishop of JJ Buckley in California. Like others, Hong Kong’s Stockman suggests more ‘communication and consumer tastings to help raise awareness’.

Indeed, Domaine de Chevalier owner Olivier Bernard is in the early stages of writing a book on white wines. ‘We need a spotlight on whites, because we have heard enough about the reds’, he said.

Vintage variation and quality advances

Comsumers should know that vintages for whites matter just as much as for reds. Although canopy management and vinification are adjusted each year, cooler terroirs – such as Château La Louvière and Domaine de Chevalier in Léognan excel in warmer years, while warmer terroirs in Pessac, including Château Pape Clément, thrive in cooler vintages like 2014.

Global climate change brings more warmer vintages, so some winemakers stress a prominent role for Sauvignon Blanc. ‘In the past, we needed more Sémillon for the creaminess, because the Sauvignon was a bit too pronounced,’ says Domaine de Chevalier’s Bernard. ‘With global warming, we will need less Sémillon, as Semillon in gravely soil is a bit warm on the palate, like Merlot in gravely soil.’

What also impresses is the age worthy quality of the wines, even among the less pricey. A Château La Louvière 1985 tasted in June 2020 was drinking beautifully alongside cod and later with aged Mimolette and Comté. Notes of toffee, salted caramel and quince jam came across rather fresh and with a real sense of drinkability.

Meanwhile, estates are fine-tuning their wines. Château de Fieuzal and Château Pape Clément have had some excessive oak derived flavours in the past, but both now emphasise more fruit.

Recently arrived cellar master Jean-Charles Fournié of Château de Fieuzal says he stresses freshness, tension, and minerality. Other wines, like Château La Louvière and Château Couhins Lurton, known for rather bracing acidities, are set to get a bit creamier, but without losing their authenticity. ‘I’m used to making less acidic wines, and I think that consumers want this too,’ remarked owner Jacques Lurton, who took over the estates following the passing of his father André Lurton in 2019.

Enclosure questions

As with other dry white wines, consumers can encounter premature oxidation which is not limited to white Burgundy. During the dinner with the exquisite Château La Louvière 1985, some other 1980s whites seemed over evolved or marked by cork taint. It may have been bad luck, but winemakers like Lurton and Bernard have replaced regular cork enclosures for Diam cork since the 2015 vintage to ensure freshness.

‘Graves white is a wine that it imposes itself gently,’ remarked Strasbourg wine bar owner Stéphan Maure, with whom I tasted many of the wines for this article.

A word about organic certification. While some estates seek, or even have certification for being fully organic, that is not an essential condition for top quality. Indeed, the climate conditions make Bordeaux less ideal for being fully organic each year when compared to the Languedoc for example.

A success story is Château Smith Haut Lafitte which obtained its ‘Agriculture Biologique’ certification just last year, rewarding long term organic practices and historical commitment to nature and biodiversity set up by Florence and Daniel Cathiard, since they acquired the estate in 1990. However, Château de Fieuzal and Domaine de Chevalier for instance both strive to be fully organic when possible, but it is not always the case.

Stylistic categories

Most exotic and opulent

Château Pape Clement

Most refined and focused

Domaine de Chevalier

Most sumptuous and elegant

Château Smith Haut Lafitte

Best price quality ratios

Château de Chantegrive

Château Couhins-Lurton

Château La Louvière

Château Latour-Martillac

Château Malartic-Lagravière

Panos Kakaviatos’ top Bordeaux dry whites from the 2015 vintage

Two bottles of Château Latour-Martillac, Cru Classé de Graves were submitted and tasted but both were corked.

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South American white wines have undergone a more radical transformation this century than in any other period in the continent’s history. Changes have been driven by numerous factors. The search for cooler spots to mitigate the effects of climate change, combined with increasing self-confidence, has led producers to explore progressively more marginal conditions, while the need to offer consumers diversity is encouraging producers to consider alternative varieties. Additionally, there has been a desire to preserve local heritage, prompting producers to explore old vineyards.

As wine drinkers become increasingly curious, astute and interested in less familiar grape varieties, unusual styles and unique stories, South American producers are responding with enthusiasm and the landscape is changing rapidly.

New territory

On both sides of the Andes the boundaries of viticulture are moving towards higher altitudes, closer to the sea and further south.

In Mendoza, Argentina, some of the Precordillera (Andean foothills) vineyards in La Carrera and Uspallata boast altitudes surpassing 2,000m. In the desert-like conditions of Jujuy, Argentina’s northernmost viticultural region, vineyards have been established at altitudes above 3,300m, with Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay and Torrontés Riojano planted alongside red varieties.

Chilean producers are also heading to the hills. In the Elqui Valley, Viña Falernia has planted Pedro Ximénez in one of the country’s highest vineyards, at 2,070m. Altitude also features in Brazil. In the southern part of the country, Santa Catarina state, vineyards have been planted at 1,300m. Sauvignon Blanc has real potential in this region, and a producer to look out for is Vinícola Thera.

For decades, cooling coastal breezes have been an important ally to Chilean producers. Some of the best white wines made in Limarí, San Antonio, Leyda, Casablanca and Colchagua Costa benefit from their proximity to the Pacific ocean, which is one of the reasons why Viña Errázuriz decided to establish vines in Aconcagua Costa.

Argentinian producers have similarly begun to establish vineyards near the coast. Trapiche developed Chapadmalal, south of Buenos Aires, while Matías Michelini has recently joined a project at Bahía Bustamante, 1,500km south of the capital, where vines have been planted just metres from the sea.

In Uruguay, Bodega Garzón has included Albarino, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Riesling and Semillon in its Maldonado vineyards, 18km from the Atlantic.

There has been a rush towards marginal climates in the south of the continent. In Argentina, Patagonia has attracted the interest of many producers despite challenging conditions that include low rainfall, howling winds and the threat of frost. Alejandro Bulgheroni started Otronia winery, a project in Capitán Sarmiento, Chubut, where Pinot Gris, Gewürztraminer and Chardonnay were planted at parallel 45.33°S. The concept of pushing the vine to the limit to achieve the best results does seem to have its benefits, and Otronia Chardonnay already features among the country’s best.

In Chile, the lack of support for development of viticulture from the local Mapuche population, the country’s largest ethnic group, most of whom live in the south, has historically hindered expansion south of Bío Bío. Additionally, the threat of excessive humidity discouraged producers from crossing the line until Viña Aquitania set up vineyards in Traiguén, Malleco Valley, 650km south of Santiago in 1995. Plantings have since then expanded around Malleco and extended to Osorno, more than 900km south of Santiago, where Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay have shown potential. Miguel Torres, Casa Silva and Viña Trapi del Bueno are achieving remarkable results in this area.

Exploring diversity

Although South American countries cannot claim the levels of diversity of countries such as Italy or Portugal, there is a growing number of grape varieties and styles for wine lovers to explore. In Argentina, white grapes account for 18.36% of plantings. Three types of Torrontés (Riojano, Sanjuanino and Mendocino) dominate, accounting for almost 10,000ha of the 36,400ha planted to white varieties. Torrontés can perform well and demonstrate versatility at different price points, and there is a trend towards toning down its aromatic exuberance. Producers are picking earlier to obtain more delicate citrus notes, retain freshness and achieve lower alcohol while maintaining its personality.

Torrontés responds well to fermentation on the skins and adapts itself to judicious use of oak. In Calchaquí Valley, in Argentina’s north, high-altitude vineyards are responsible for some of the best examples, including those from Bodega Colomé, located in Salta province, and Bodega El Porvenir in Cafayate, also Salta. Zuccardi Serie A and Susana Balbo are also excellent examples. Torrontés is able to retain its personality and offer value even at lower price points. One producer achieving consistently good results is Bodega La Riojana.

Argentina is a reliable source of entry-level Chardonnay, the second most-planted grape variety in the country at 5,921ha. Trivento achieves admirable results at this level.

Chardonnay is also responsible for some of Argentina’s best whites. Consumers looking to trade up can find many producers, including Andeluna, Bodega Atamisque, Finca Flichman and Bodega Catena Zapata, which makes an outstanding example from its Adrianna vineyard in Gualtallary, worthy of comparison with any world-class Chardonnay.

There is more to explore than just these two varieties. Consumers who enjoy lighter, refreshing styles can search for Bodega Norton, which makes an elegant Gruner Veltliner as well as a bright and pure Sauvignon Blanc. Zorzal offers a racy, focused and refreshing Sauvignon Blanc in its Eggo range called Blanc de Cal. Those who prefer more exuberant and richer styles could explore Viognier from Bodega Lagarde, which claims to be the pioneer of this variety in Argentina. The grapes are sourced from vineyards planted in 1989 in Luján de Cuyo and display excellent varietal character while retaining elegance and freshness.

Argentinian diversity does not end here. There are other great examples of varietal wines, including Fiano (Bodega Caelum), Malvasia (Escala Humana), Verdejo (Familia Zuccardi), Pinot Grigio (Finca La Celia) and Chenin Blanc (Michelini i Mufatto).

White blends are becoming increasingly fashionable in Argentina. At the entry level, Torrontés blends offer good value, especially alongside Riesling or Chardonnay. However, real excitement is found at higher price points. Matías Riccitelli makes Blanco de La Casa, offering incredible personality and laser-sharp freshness by blending Chardonnay, Sauvignon and Semillon. Matervini produces an outstanding example of a richer style by co-fermenting Marsanne and Viognier before ageing in oak. Judging by recent success, wine lovers can expect more exciting blends in years to come.

Chile has built its reputation on offering excellent-value varietal wines, especially Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay, which dominate plantings with 15,300ha and 11,200ha respectively. Price-sensitive shoppers are well served by Chile, with many of the large players such as Santa Carolina and Concha y Toro doing an admirable job.

At the mid-premium level there are too many producers to mention – although Viña Casablanca must be highlighted for winning a DWWA Gold medal in 2019 with its Nimbus Sauvignon Blanc. Further excitement is found at the premium end with many producers throughout the country making exceptional Chardonnay, from Concha y Toro’s Amelia in Limarí in the north, to Viña Aquitania’s Sol de Sol in Malleco in the south.

Chile offers other excellent varietal wines, including Albarino (Vinos G2), Riesling (Cono Sur), Sauvignon Gris (Casa Marin), Viognier (Tabalí), Pinot Grigio and Gewürztraminer (Morandé), and recently País (Bouchon), among others. Producers in Chile are also demonstrating creativity through blends. Adventurous consumers can explore Cono Sur’s Gewürztraminer-Viognier-Riesling blend under the great-value Bicicleta label. At the mid-premium level, Morandé offers Bestiario, an excellent blend of Marsanne, Roussanne and Viognier. For audacious consumers, A Los Viñateros Bravos has an outstanding blend of Semillon and Muscat called Granítico Blanco from a small parcel of old vines in Itata.

Old vine revival

In fact, old vines of less fashionable varieties such as Semillon, Moscatel and Corinto (believed to be Chasselas), historically planted and destined for bulk wines, are experiencing a revival. Viñas Inéditas Terroir Sonoro winemaker Juan José Ledesma’s Moscatel de Alejandría grown in Itata, and J Bouchon’s Granito Semillon from Maule, both made from vines of at least 70 years old, are sublime examples.

Old-vine Semillon has also been rediscovered in Argentina. Matías Riccitelli sources fruit from an ungrafted vineyard planted in Rio Negro in the 1960s and turns it into one of Argentina’s most exciting white wines. Producers all over Argentina are paying attention to old vines, including Torrontés. Bodega El Esteco makes an outstanding example from a Calchaquí Valley vineyard planted in 1945. This is a positive trend that will help to reverse the demise of some wonderful old vineyards that are scattered all over the continent and often overlooked.

Vine age features less in Brazil and Uruguay, with even the best wines of Uruguay made from comparatively young vines. Albarino has been producing good results. The Galician variety was introduced by Bodega Bouza in 2001 and planted by Bodega Garzón in 2006.

The success of these producers has started a trend that looks set to continue. It is highly likely that Albarino plantings will increase ahead of other varieties in the coming decade and be a welcome addition to the Chardonnay, Viognier and Sauvignon Blanc that have been planted for decades and perform well in the hands of competent producers such as Daniel Pisano and Familia Deicas.

Brazil focuses its production on red and sparkling wines as there is low consumption of white wine in the domestic market. However, there is respectable diversity, with Albarino, Chenin Blanc, Gewürztraminer, Malvasia, Muscat, Pinot Grigio, Riesling, Semillon, Verdejo and Viognier planted alongside Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay.

Brazilian producers are not able to compete with their South American neighbours at the entry-level price points due to high domestic taxation and labour costs. At the top end there is no iconic white wine yet, but in the mid-premium category there are producers worthy of attention, such as Don Guerino, Guaspari and Pizzato, which makes Legno, by far the country’s best Chardonnay.

The way ahead

South American producers are pushing boundaries and discovering new terroir. There is also a growing sense of responsibility towards protecting old vineyards, while the adventurous spirit of South Americans is driving plantings of new varieties. At the same time, younger producers are coming to the fore, injecting fresh ideas to expand the knowledge of the experienced old guard.

The overall result is increased diversity, enthusiasm and optimism, and there is a palpable sense of excitement. There has never been a better time to explore the white wines of South America, which, generally speaking, over-deliver in terms of quality and value, at all price points.

Judging by recent developments, the next decade will be even more exciting.

Top South American white wines to try

INSIDE THIS MONTH’S EDITION OF DECANTER…

• Chile: what’s hot on the Chilean wine scene
• The Decanter interview: Susana Balbo
• My top 20: South American red blends
• South American white wines: new terroirs, new ideas, new impetus across the continent
• Uruguay: the way ahead, following two decades of advance
• Regional profile: McLaren Vale, South Australia
• Producer profile: Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars, Napa Valley, in its 50th anniversary year
• South Africa’s Semillon Gris: a remarkable phenomenon
• Chile & Argentina: The Rise of Pinot Noir

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• Wine legends: Seña 1997, Aconcagua, Chile

There’s something strange happening in South Africa’s Semillon vineyards. Green bunches turn red the one year, then back to green the next. Hung like Christmas baubles on gnarled bushvines, the shapeshifting clusters are an enduring mystery.

Viticultural juggernaut and protector of old vines, Rosa Kruger thought she was losing her mind when she first noticed this phenomenon known as red Semillon or Semillon Gris.

‘I started marking the mutated [red] vines while taking cuttings for planting material,’ she explained when I asked her about the variety. ‘The following year the bunches on the vine would be green again. I thought I was making a mistake, but after a couple of years I realised that Semillon Gris can actually mutate back to Blanc. In general though, the Gris vineyards are fairly consistent once they’ve mutated.’

Semillon Gris is largely unique to the Cape winelands and appears to be an old-vine oddity. One of the Cape’s oldest varieties, Semillon was widely planted in the early 1800s. It was so ubiquitous it was simply called Groen Druif translating to ‘green grape’ from Afrikaans.

These days plantings of Semillon have fallen massively, though there are still pockets of heritage vineyards, some more than 100 years old, carefully guarded by viticulturists and winemakers.

In the early 1800s it’s said that 80% of the vines in South Africa were thought to be Semillon. By the mid-1800s half of these had mutated into Semillon Gris.

Green and red

Is the secret the Cape’s sunshine? One such sun-soaked day before the Covid-19 lockdown, I made my way to Swartland for the weekend. My first stop was to track down Andrea Mullineux of Mullineux & Leeu Family Wines to pull at the threads of this red-skinned mystery.

It’s big sky and big sun country here, and the aspect of Roundstone Farm – tucked into a mountainside in Swartland’s heartland – is tilted just right to soak up those life-giving rays.

Since purchasing Roundstone in 2014, Andrea and husband Chris have planted Syrah, Chenin Blanc, Cinsault, Clairette Blanche, Roussanne, Maccabeu and Semillon Gris. The vineyards fan over a bedrock of deep schist.

‘It’s all about texture,’ Andrea says of the glass of The Gris Semillon Old Vines 2018 she poured. ‘The vineyard was planted in 1960. It’s from an extremely rare, dry-farmed vineyard planted on the granite soils of the Paardeberg. The grapes were hand-picked and fermented naturally in a single barrel.’

Aromas of pear, orange rind and jasmine tea rise from the glass, but this wine is all about the palate. There’s a tension; a pull between chalkiness and an oily glycerol roundness, with a saline edge and bright, pithy acidity.

As I leave, Andrea hands me my next piece of the Semillon Gris puzzle: ‘Get a hold of Jasper Wickens. He has a wine you must try.’

Sun and latitude

Winemaker Jasper and his viticulturist wife Franziska make wines under their Swerwer label on her family farm in Paardeberg. Jasper thinks the key to the Gris mutation may lie in South Africa’s latitude.

‘For centuries Semillon was the Cape’s most widely planted grape, and as time passed in its new African environment – with hotter, more intense sun and UV conditions than in France – farmers discovered their grapes turning red or pink. My guess is the pigmentation is a way for the grape to protect itself from the sun.

‘It used to be such a common sight that farmers simply referred to it as Rooi-Groendruif or Rooi-Groen [red-green] for short,’ he explains.

‘We have old records which stated the amounts of mutated vines. In certain cases farms were told to harvest and deliver the two colours of grapes to the co-ops separately. This is how common and significant the phenomenon was.’

He pours a bottle of his Swerwer, Rooi-Groen Semillon 2018. Where the Mullineux wine was lemon in colour, Jasper has worked more with the skins to produce a wine that is burnished copper.

There’s gingered peach, orange and blossom aromas. Then nectarine, red apple and grapefruit fill the palate, leading to a gently savoury finish.

Not only is the wine a triumph in taste but so is its genesis: made from a young Gris vineyard planted specifically for the purpose – something not thought possible.

‘Franziska and her father started selecting mutated vineyard material from an old 1960s block,’ explains Jasper. ‘From those propagated cuttings, they then selected the best young vines over a three-year period. The grapes stayed pink-red. From this vineyard only the best material was again used to establish another vineyard close to my cellar. That vineyard is now six years old.’

Ancient vines

A few hours’ drive from Swartland is Franschhoek, the unofficial capital of old-vine Semillon, with the oldest block dating back to 1902. Surrounded by three mountains, there are more shadows here than in Swartland, but the sun still locks heat into the alluvial soils.

Franschhoek’s most famous Semillon vineyard is called La Colline. Planted in 1936, it’s used by a few lucky winemakers, including Chris Alheit of Alheit Vineyards.

‘During summer, these tightly planted bushvines form a slightly wild looking mess of life and grapes,’ says Chris. ‘In winter they resemble a crowd of drunkards cartwheeling across the slope. It is a beautiful old thing.’

The Semillon Blanc here is interplanted with the Gris: ‘At this age the vines are very settled, giving a dependable crop of perfect little yellow and pink pearls of flavour,’ he says.

Boekenhoutskloof, hidden away in the furthest corner of Franschhoek, also makes use of La Colline.

Winemaker Gottfried Mocke blends parcels of both Gris and Blanc from the three oldest vineyards in the region: 1902, 1936 and 1942. The grapes are whole-bunch pressed and then spontaneous fermentation takes place in foudres and concrete eggs. To create the oxidative style he is looking for, Mocke ferments the juice at low temperatures to inhibit malolactic activity.

His 2017 Semillon is rich and textured. It has the texture of a red, though its flavours are all white: lemony with waxy lanolin and roasted nuts.

Unique treasure

It was at Boekenhoutskloof that Jean Smit fell in love with Semillon. Previously winemaker there, he now has a project called Damascene, sourcing grapes from exceptional sites across the Cape.

The Franschhoek vineyards for Damascene’s 2018 Semillon were planted in 1942 and 1962. ‘We are acutely aware of how fortunate we are to be working with this unique piece of South African viticultural history,’ he explains.

A blend of Blanc and Gris, the wine is all about nuance: a tug between density and weightlessness, poise and phenolic grip. Blossom and white peach pull you in to a palate that’s oily and mouthcoating, with an endless luscious finish.

Time, the sun and the latitude of the Cape winelands have all conspired to bring about a grape that, more than its colour-changing skin, has become a national treasure – even if it is an enigma.

From the dry bowl of Swartland, to the mountainous ridges of Franschhoek, Semillon Gris has captured the imagination of some of South Africa’s most talented winemakers, who are nurturing an 18th-century mystery back to life.

Five Cape wines with Semillon Gris to try

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It’s not always the case that a great year for red Bordeaux translates into an equally great vintage for Sauternes. Excessive rain is the enemy of fine claret, but without showers and moisture, the all-important noble rot fails to set in on golden bunches in Sauternes.

Scroll down for Stephen Brook’s top 18 Sauternes 2015 tasting notes and scores

A good example is 2000: it was a splendid vintage for red Bordeaux, but in Sauternes the heavens opened as the bunches were beginning to attract botrytis, and most of the crop rotted on the vine. In 2015, however, the viticultural and climatic planets aligned, and Bordeaux as a whole made outstanding wines.In Sauternes, the flowering took place in warm conditions, and the summer was as hot as in 2005, although light rain in August was welcomed, and also helped to provoke botrytis. This allowed the first picking, at least at Château d’Yquem, to take place in early September.

Showers in mid-September spurred on more noble rot, and cool, dry conditions thereafter concentrated the fruit. A second third of the crop was picked from late September. Two further pickings took place in October Yquem’s winemaker, Sandrine Garbay, noted that the October lots had less acidity than those picked in September, but they had more volume and a more pronounced dried-fruit character. And for once, yields were good, with Château Climens reporting 21hl/ha.

Xavier Planty, the recently retired winemaker at Château Guiraud (where this tasting was organised), declared: ‘The picking dates were very variable in 2015. By early October, Yquem had picked half its crop, but Filhot hadn’t even started the harvest. Yet the wines are very homogenous, although some are racier than others, while some are richer and weightier. Each château has its own style, and succeeded well within it.’

Ripe and fresh

Having retasted the wines, that assessment seems about right. The hallmark of the vintage is the fine acidity of the wines, conserved by the cool autumn nights. This combination of ripe botrytised fruit with refreshing acidity is beguiling. Some vintages have the volume but lack freshness; others are zesty but lack richness and complexity – 2015 has them both.

This vintage character seems to have suited Barsac particularly well, and most properties here made outstanding wines. As is often the case, the wines from Sauternes or Bommes are richer and more sumptuous but slightly less fresh and bright. It is a question of style rather than quality, and superb wines are to be found in all communes.

Garbay compares the year to 2005, ‘but with more acidity’. This is a vintage to relish: Sauternes that can be enjoyed young but has undoubted ageing potential too. However, as has so often been lamented, these gorgeous wines remain under-appreciated and underpriced. There is no reason to expect a renascence of Sauternes’ fortunes with this vintage, but it’s certainly deserving of it.

Stephen Brook has been a Decanter contributing editor since 2006, and is author of The Complete Bordeaux, now in its third edition

See Stephen Brook’s top 18 Sauternes 2015 tasting notes and scores

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See an October update on the Bordeaux 2019 harvest by Jane Anson

Harvesting has officially begun in Bordeaux, where the first grapes for dry white wines were picked this week.

Château Smith Haut Lafitte, producer of some of the region’s most lauded white wines, began bringing in its first parcels of Sauvignon Blanc on 27 August.

Fierce heatwaves in both June and July slowed up the ripening the process, but there was optimism among estates that the relatively short-lived heat spikes will not have caused lasting damage to Bordeaux’s 2019 white wine vintage.

Decanter’s chief Bordeaux critic, Jane Anson, told Decanter.com, ‘There’s no question that this has been a hot summer, which must be a little worrying for the acid balance in the whites, although August generally saw cooler temperatures than the heatwave of July, and with many whites coming in this week, there is plenty of optimism for the harvest.’

Florence Cathiard, co-owner of Smith-Haut-Lafitte, told the France 3 station this week that she expected a ‘superb’ white wine crop.

Nearby Château Olivier, also in the Pessac-Léognan appellation south of Bordeaux centre, started its white wine harvest on 29 August.

Testing showed ‘a promising balance between sugar and acidity levels,’ it said, adding that fine weather has kept vineyard diseases away. Veraison – where the grapes begin to change colour and ripen – has been uniform, it said.

‘The current sunny and dry weather conditions are a great way to start the 2019 harvest,’ said Olivier.

A smaller crop? Not for everybody…

French government estimates released last week said that Bordeaux was heading for a smaller overall 2019 harvest versus 2018, largely due to rain in some places during flowering in June, plus record-breaking heatwaves and cases of spring frost.

However, it is notoriously difficult to generalise and some estates saw yields hit hard by mildew attacks in 2018.

Quantity levels at Smith-Haut-Lafitte would likely return to normal at the organically-farmed estate in 2019 following a 2018 vintage that saw production fall by 50%, Cathiard told France 3.

Reds

Red wine grapes are further back on their journey and harvesting is not expected to start in earnest in Bordeaux until later in September.

Weather forecasts for the next fortnight looked promising on Friday (30 August), with mostly dry, warm and sunny weather.

Gabriel Vialard, technical director at Château Haut-Bailly, told Decanter.com, ‘We can expect to harvest around 20 September [and we think] the harvest looks promising both in quality and quantity.’

France’s agriculture ministry has said it expects the country’s 2019 harvest to be around 43.3 million hectolitres, at the low end of its earlier forecast range. That would make the 2019 vintage 12% smaller than the 2018 crop.

See also: What makes a great vintage? 

It’s hard to think of a more unusual wine in Bordeaux than Château Gilette.

I can say without hesitation that I have never used the phrase unicorn wine in my life.

But what else do you call a Sauternes that is aged exclusively in concrete vats for 20 years before release – never seeing any oak or oxygen – and which has a production of 4,000 to 5,000 bottles per year, if it is made at all?

While in vat, the wine sees no racking, no topping up, no extra sulphur and no lees stirring; in short, no nothing. It is moved into vat after fermentation with natural yeasts that can last until the summer following harvest.Vats are specially made in Italy and sized between 14 hectolitres (hl) and 45hl, each one adorned with a rather lovely carving of a single canary-yellow bunch of grapes.After a 20-year hibernation, the wine is racked off the lees, briefly freeing the aromatics that have developed anaerobically over two decades. It is then bottled.

The current vintage is 1999.

Just to drive the point home, this wine was laid down when Bill Clinton was US president, the European single currency had just been born and The Matrix was released at the cinema.

Gilette has been making wine like this since 1937, ploughing its own furrow in the face of confusion and raised eyebrows from the neighbours and trade.

It was a non-choice at first, due to the circumstances of Réné Medeville, grandfather of current owner Julie Gonet-Medeville.

He was forced off to war at a time when barrels and bottles were almost impossible to come by, and so a portion of his production was simply left in a vat to be dealt with when he returned from the front.

He did come back, eventually, but by that time it was 1946 and the wine was still there.

Fully expecting it to be ruined, he opened up the vat and found instead that the wine had stayed fresh and developed an array of aromatics that stood it apart from other Sauternes being made at the time.

Réné was impressed but unwilling to bet the house on the result, and so he made a crème de tête from this style of long-aged, unoaked botrytis wine, while continuing to make other styles that ranged from mouelleux to demi-sec to fully dry.

In 1967, his son Christian, who had taken over in 1953, decided to turn the entire production from the Château’s 4.5 hectare walled vineyard to the crème de tête production, where it has stayed ever since.

The vines in Preignac lie on sandy-gravel-over-limestone soils.

It is not for nothing that the owners are called the antique dealers of Sauternes.

Not only is the wine carefully protected for decades, but in the vineyard no plots are pulled up and no vines replaced except one-by-one, as the old plants die out. The oldest vines are almost entirely Sémillon, planted in the 1930s.

Since 2000 only three vintages have been missed – the 2000, 2012 and 2017 – but there have been long spells when nothing was made at all, such as from 1991 to 1995.

As you might expect, the entire production is sold direct. Try finding a négociant who is willing to hand-sell this story. Seventy percent goes abroad, mainly to Michelin-starred wine lists and to private collectors.

But then the Médevilles have always been self-sufficient.

They have been in the same building since 1710, backing on to the Garonne river by the former port and the Preignac church.

On the far side of the river the spire of St-Croix-du-Mont church sits high, but is only visible from certain angles, as the 1,500m-long Ile de Gruère obscures the view from one bank to the other.

Julie casually tells me that the Médeville family owns half of the island, which it shares with France’s agricultural research agency, INRA, and that they used to raise cattle on it. Today they grow only poplar trees. 

How the wine tastes

This is without doubt a wine apart.

Single bottles fetch around €200, putting Gilette squarely into the upper echelons of luxury wine, certainly in Sauternes, where I can only think of d’Yquem that equals it in price.

Maintaining that position takes a lot more than simply having a good story, as countless of their Sauternes neighbours can attest.

But I can promise you that the taste of this wine lives up to the myth.

Different vintages offer by turn caramelized fruit, salt-water taffy, tarte tatin, juicy apricot and fresh lime, all curiously weightless.

When young – 20 years old is young in this case – it’s fresher than you might expect.

When old it has the mandarin zest and spiced complexity of a Tokaj.

You can’t quite put your finger on it, but you know you like it, which is why giving scores was exceptionally difficult during the tasting.

All I can really tell you is that you should get hold of some, and see for yourself.

The current owners, Julie and Xavier, are perfectly placed to understand how to keep fanning the flames of this strange period piece of a wine.

Xavier is from Mesnil-sur-Oger, where his family owns the Champagne house Philippe Gonet, and the couple now has a small Champagne estate Gonet-Médeville in Bisseuil, along with micro-productions of two wines in Margaux.

They have no more than 45 hectares in total across all their estates, making tiny quantities of sought-after bottlings.

That is a smart strategy, and one that saw Julie win a Talent award in 2018 from the Centre de Luxe et de la Création that recognises those who promote French artisanship worldwide.

There is also a separate Preignac estate, called Château les Justices, that follows a – slightly – more traditional path of two years ageing in vat and one year in bottle, still entirely unoaked.

But Château Gilette itself remains stubbornly true to its beliefs. ‘My father did try 27 years in vat with his first vintage and he had to admit that it was simply too long,’ says Julie.

Her own first vintage was 2005, which is still in hibernation right now. ‘That’s another benefit of our system,’ she says with a smile. ‘I’ve still got a good few years before I am judged on the result.’

Tasting notes for Château Gilette wines

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Tasting Château La Gaffelière shows St-Emilion’s reinvention – Jane Anson

My first Sauternes love was Château Lafaurie-Peyraguey 1983. I was so enamoured with its vibrancy and citrus and tropical fruit fragrance that I bought two cases for what today seems a very derisory price.

Thirty-six years on and the colour may have changed to amber and the aromas become more confit, but there’s still a wonderful tangy tension. Good Sauternes wines may be rich in residual sugar, but an important part of its beguiling quality is the balance brought by perceived freshness.

Scroll down for James Lawther’s top 10 wine picks from Sauternes & Barsac

To this day I am unaware of the residual sugar content and total acidity in the Semillon-based wine, which is probably just as well. What goes down on paper as statistical analysis does not always correspond to the gustatory and aromatic sensation.

You can have what appears to be good acidity and lower residual sugar in a wine that seems less fresh. The opposite can also be the case. Other factors also come into play, namely terroir, vintage and, in particular, the quality and quantity of botrytis cinerea, or noble rot, and the aromatic complexity that stems from it. ‘The notion of freshness is brought by the aromatics, not technical data,’ declares François Amirault, winemaker at Château de Fargues for more than 25 years.

In terms of terroir, all agree that the lower-lying limestone soils of Barsac offer an extra edge of minerality and freshness. ‘A wine may have the same residual sugar content as a Sauternes, but on the palate the Barsac will seem less sweet and have more tension,’ explains consultant oenologist Marie-Pierre Lacoste-Duchesne, who also runs the family property Château La Clotte-Cazalis in Barsac. For wine lovers, it’s a point to bear in mind.

If this is the blanket case for Barsac, in the rest of Sauternes, where the soils are varied (sand, gravel, clay), the results can be subtly nuanced. It’s what helps, for instance, with the complexity at 100ha Château d’Yquem. ‘The clay and gravel soils around the château definitely impart freshness due to the early ripening nature of the site and subsequent onset of botrytis,’ says Yquem winemaker Sandrine Garbay. ‘On the north-facing slope, in contrast, there’s more clay and it’s cooler, so the botrytis generally arrives later, providing the rich heart of the blend but less freshness.’

Acid test

At this point, it is probably worth underlining the distinction between acidity in a wine and the perception of freshness. The former is a constant that can be measured and, of course, it imparts vivacity; the latter is purely a sensation that’s provoked by a mix of factors – in this case terroir, botrytis and individual vintage conditions.

In certain vintages, total acidity can be quite marked, something both measurable and perceptible in the wine. Even in the case of a wine such as Château d’Yquem 2014, where residual sugar is as much as 146g/l, it is clearly evident. As a whole, 2014, due to a cooler summer, is a vintage where acidities are exceptionally strong but residual sugar is also generous. So, if a nervier Sauternes or Barsac is your preference – as opposed to one that is rich and powerful like those of 2009 – then this is a vintage to seek out. Other readier-to-drink vintages where a heightened acidity can be perceived are 2008 and 2002, although they are lighter in weight and intensity.

By contrast, there are vintages where acidities are lower and the wines bountifully rich, but the sensation of freshness is still maintained. Two of the recent greats, 2015 and 2011, are perfect examples. Acidities are lower than in 2014 and there’s greater volume and concentration, but the wines remain vibrant and elegant in style. Both vintages had a couple of notable aspects that contributed to this condition: an early and rapid flowering, and a wave of very pure noble rot that arrived in early September. The purity and complexity of the aromatics with fresh fruit and floral notes is what has helped heighten the sensation of freshness in these years.

The key element to note is the rapid onset of noble rot. ‘When the botrytis arrives soon after the grapes have reached full maturity, you get an amplification of aromas due to the interaction between the two,’ explains Xavier Planty, co-owner of organically certified Château Guiraud. ‘Whereas grapes that are overripe, and that wait several days for the botrytis to be present, will provide concentration but offer less aromatic complexity – and consequently less of a sensation of freshness,’ he adds.

Vineyard management

When it comes to the production of Sauternes, ‘technique’ is a questionable word. ‘Contrary to dry white and red wines there’s no technical solution to modify what nature offers,’ states Frédéric Nivelle, technical director of biodynamically run Château Climens in Barsac. Even so, since the 1980s, producers have refined techniques that help prepare the vineyard for botrytis and later on protect the fresh fruit character in the wine.

With most châteaux producing less than the 25hl/ha appellation limit, excessive yields are not a problem. The main thrust has been in managing the vineyard so that the Semillon and Sauvignon Blanc come to full maturity before the onset of the first wave of botrytis, normally in early September, when alternating heat and humidity provide the right conditions. ‘We work the soils to encourage the roots downwards, manage vine vigour and do leaf plucking to assist maturity so the botrytis can arrive on ripe fruit and not green,’ says Jean-Jacques Dubourdieu of Château Doisy-Daëne.

Another tip has been to avoid or limit spraying for disease during the flowering period, as it has been demonstrated that botrytis is already present on the vine but dormant. Organic or biodynamic cultivation has also been a solution for some. ‘You need to link acidity and maturity so I’ve rectified the trellising, adopted some biodynamic practices, and in the last four years have had a lower pH and higher acidities,’ declares Daniel Alibrand of tiny 6ha Domaine de l’Alliance in Fargues.

Clearly, the harvest period is critical, the windows of opportunity dependent on the weather and concentration of botrytis, and the level of competence of the pickers is more important than for dry white and red wine. ‘I prefer to pick with a little less concentration to help keep the vivacity, and with our experienced team we can react quickly and do a trie in a day,’ explains Laure de Lambert, owner of Château Sigalas Rabaud. Residual sugar content for most vintages at the 14ha estate hover between 120 and 130g/l. With an early harvest, another possibility is to pick both fully botrytised grapes and those at a less botrytised stage, raisins dorés, which also contributes to complexity and freshness.

Balancing act

Having completed the harvest, the next critical phase is to preserve fruit and freshness in the cellar. Here again, considerable advances have been made over the past 15 years. Generally speaking, additions of sulphur dioxide have been reduced; some estates now prefer the fermentation to be completed naturally at an ambient temperature rather than stopping it by lowering the temperature. Blending the different lots is also an important and skilled moment, but perhaps the biggest change has been in barrel ageing.

‘Oak ageing has one fault: it makes the wine seem heavier and less digestible,’ says Alibrand. He has chosen to use older and larger (350-litre) barrels with a lighter toast. At Château d’Yquem, where oak ageing is important for structure, maturation time used to be three-and-a-half years, but since 2005 this has been reduced to two. The number of rackings has also been cut to five over that period, down from 12. At Château Lafaurie-Peyraguey, the new ownership (since 2013) has also reduced time in barrel and adopted a lighter toast. ‘A heavier toast emphasises sweetness, vanilla and caramel; a lighter toast underscores the citrus and fresh fruit,’ says cellarmaster Christophe Navarro.

When it comes down to it, there is no fixed recipe for creating freshness in Sauternes. Terroir has first say in the matter, followed by vintage, the latter more strongly felt in contrasting ways in vintages like 2014 and 2009. Thereafter there is the stylistic fine tuning at individual châteaux and the efforts made to preserve purity and freshness through successful blending and barrel maturation. In the end it’s all a question of balance, each factor adding something to the perception of freshness in the wine.

Based in Bordeaux, James Lawther MW is a contributing editor to Decanter and the author of The Finest Wines of Bordeaux

See James Lawther’s top 10 wine picks from Sauternes & Barsac:

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What began in 1970 as a Hunter Valley hobby-farm vineyard for three Sydney-based solicitor friends, Tony Albert, John Beeston and James Halliday, has today evolved into one of Australia’s premier wine brands.

Brokenwood Wines produces an impressive range of high quality wine from vineyards around Australia, including the Canberra District, Beechworth, and even as far afield as McLaren Vale. However, it’s in the heart of the Hunter Valley – Australia’s oldest wine region – that Brokenwood calls home.

‘Hunter Valley terroir is very unique in Australia,’ declares Brokenwood’s managing director and chief winemaker, Iain Riggs AM. ‘Our sub-tropical climate typically means dry winters and wet summers, so humidity, low fertility soils and rapid ripening from véraison to harvest plays a big part in the unique quality of Hunter wine.’Semillon and Shiraz are the stalwart wine grapes of the Hunter Valley. While Brokenwood doesn’t own any Semillon vineyards itself, it produces an outstanding expression from two of the finest sandy-loam Semillon vineyards in the region: Oakey Creek and Trevena.

ILR Semillon

‘The ILR [Iain Leslie Riggs] Reserve Semillon is typically a blend of two high-quality vineyards in the Hunter, bottled under screwcap and released with six years of bottle age,’ Riggs explains.

Graveyard Shiraz

Brokenwood’s most significant vineyard holding is Graveyard, so named because the 15ha patch of red clay-loam and ironstone patches was once dedicated as a cemetery, although it was never used as such. The first Shiraz vines were planted in 1968, with the Brokenwood partners purchasing the vineyard ten years later. The first single-vineyard Shiraz was made by Riggs in 1983.

It’s the only Hunter Valley Shiraz in the Langton’s Classification, occupying a spot in the highest, ‘Exceptional’, category.

‘We only make Graveyard in the very best years, usually to around 13-14% alcohol, with 100% new French oak. Because of the lack of colour and tannin extraction, the wines are very much in the medium-bodied spectrum, which is typical of most Hunter reds.’

The tasting

In late 2018, Brokenwood invited a select number of guests to attend the opening of their new cellar door and taste a 13-vintage vertical of their seminal ILR Semillon, and an 18-vintage vertical of their quintessential Graveyard Shiraz. Below are my highlights of the tasting – the top six vintages of each wine.

Tasting Brokenwood’s Hunter Valley wines:

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Top South African white wines

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Much of South Africa is exposed to the cooling influence of the Atlantic and Indian oceans, which meet off Cape Agulhas.

It’s this cooler climate that enables South Africa to produce top-class white wines, from Bordeaux-style whites to Chenin Blanc, Chardonnay and Rhône-influenced blends.

It’s said that South Africa straddles the line between new and old world, and looking through the list below this is clear to see: wines such as Vergelegen’s GVB White wouldn’t be out of place in a Bordeaux lineup.

Decanter’s Tastings team recently attended a tasting of over 50 wines that have been awarded five stars in the 2019 edition of the Platter South African Wine Guide, narrowing the selection down to a shortlist of top buys.

How many of these wines do you want in your collection?

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Getting better with age: Old-vine Chenin Blanc in South Africa

British Columbia wines: Can they compete?

Jane Anson enjoys an incredible vertical of Domaine de Chevalier white wines - read her report and and see full tasting notes for 20 vintages spanning 40 years.

China has long been more reticent about white wine than red, and white Bordeaux is hardly the one that anyone would bet on to change its mind.

But if anyone can take on the challenge, it’s Domaine de Chevalier.

Scroll down to see the wines and tasting notes

It’s one of only six estates in the Bordeaux region to be classified in both its red and white versions – named a Cru Classé de Graves in the 1959 ranking in both colours.

Its location on the western side of Pessac-Léognan, in a spot that has particularly pronounced day-night swings of temperature, is perfect for maintaining the freshness and acidity that is so sought after in great white wines.This was the first time that the estate had done a vertical like this anywhere in the world, showing 22 vintages spanning 40 years, all in magnum.

All the bottles had come from its own cellar, sent out to Shanghai just a few weeks before the tasting. Even the setting was exceptional – a century-old house on the tree-lined Xinhua-Lu street that borders the French Concession district, a former military residence that now houses Michelin-starred French restaurant Villa Lebec.

‘There are very few white wines globally that you could do this kind of 40-year vertical with,’ says Olivier Bernard, owner of Domaine de Chevalier since 1983.

‘Burgundy, the Mosel, Alsace and just a handful of other regions. People don’t always put Bordeaux on the list, but then this region is a contradiction in many ways. It’s on the 45th parallel, so a little too northern for red wines and a little too southern for white wines. It’s why it has such a strong personality of its own, and why its wines continue to fascinate’.

What makes its success in creating whites with ageability even more unlikely is that one of its main grapes is Sauvignon Blanc, not a variety that we associate with long ageing the way we do Chardonnay or Riesling.

‘Sauvignon Blanc on our soils is quite different,’ is how Bernard explains it. ‘And besides, the best wines are a reflection of place not grape variety. I don’t make a Sauvignon Blanc, I make a Pessac-Léognan. And more importantly than that, I make a Domaine de Chevalier’.

‘White Bordeaux, like red Bordeaux, is invariably a blend,’ says Bernard, ‘which gives complexity. Sauvignon Blanc has the structure and the acidity for ageing, and I think of it like Cabernet Sauvignon in red wine, while Sémillon gives the roundness and the sexiness. It’s like Merlot. For the first five years Sauvignon Blanc dominates, then the Sémillon comes in to play.’

It’s hard to think of five decades where more changes took place in Bordeaux winemaking than from the 1970s through to the 2010s.

In 1975 Domaine de Chevalier had 3ha of white grapes and today it has 7ha. Back in the 1970s, things were still extremely traditional, with little sorting of grapes after harvest, early picking dates and very little new oak.

The 1990s was perhaps the decade with the most changes, with later picking, softer pressing of the skins, better temperature control during fermentation, more carefully monitored use of barrels, with a clearer understanding of the impact of oxygen, and regular stirring of the lees to fatten up flavour without sacrificing freshness and focus (something that Domaine de Chevalier continued even when it slipped out of fashion). Since 2011 the whites have been closed with a Diam cork to ensure a more consistent closure and less risk of oxidative issues.

But some things have not changed. The wines are still barrel fermented, with around one third new oak. The blend remains at around 80% Sauvignon Blanc and 20% Sémillon. Harvesting always takes place over several trips through the vineyard with never more than 30% of the fruit picked at any one time.

‘It takes time for full ripeness to be achieved,’ says Bernard. ‘And great wine needs the right fruit at the right maturity, something that you can’t achieve by harvesting the entire crop in one go. Most years we take three weeks to go from earliest ripening Sauvignon Blanc on warm soils to latest ripening Semillon on the coldest soils.’

The result was an amazing vertical of wines. None were served blind because, as Bernard says, ‘I wanted people to concentrate on the wines themselves, not trying to work out which vintage they were’. And they were tasted from youngest to oldest, to maintain a sense of momentum and surprise as we approached 1975.

There was some bottle variation of course.

And many proved the classic point about Bordeaux that difficult vintages for red wines are often the best for the whites, largely because white grapes have less need for intense periods of water stress than reds.

But above all it proved that Domaine de Chevalier rewrites the rules about white Bordeaux. In a good vintage (in magnum at least) the white needs 10 years in bottle. In a great year it needs 20 years.

‘When you taste one or two vintages, you are seeing the story of the weather conditions,’ says Bernard at the end of the tasting. ‘But when you do 40 years it’s the story of a property and its philosophy. You get to the heart of its personality.’

Anson’s tasting notes for Domaine de Chevalier white wines

See also: Anson’s tasting of Domaine de Chevalier red wines from 2000 to 2017

Just published for Premium subscribers:

Haut-Médoc 2010 and 2014 panel tasting results

Accessible and affordable, second wines offer the chance for a wider audience to experience the unique sweet character of Sauternes. James Lawther MW explores how these second wines are made and recommends bottles to try...

The first thing I was offered at La Chapelle, the recently opened restaurant at Château Guiraud in Sauternes, was a tasting glass of the estate’s second wine, Petit Guiraud. It arrived with a tiny, savoury amuse-bouche, a delicious concoction made with Bayonne ham.

This was all part of the new charm offensive that Sauternes is currently laying on for visitors to freshen the traditional image of this sweet wine appellation.

Forget the age-old ‘pudding wine’ concept and think aperitif, appetiser, wine by the glass, wine bar, relaxed atmosphere and immediate gratification via the more accessible second labels.

Scroll down for Lawther’s pick of second labels from Sauternes

Sauternes has long been accused of being dusty and outmoded, but there’s a shake-up going on.

Wine tourism and gastronomy are being developed – the Guiraud brasserie and a Relais & Châteaux hotel with fine dining at fellow first growth Château Lafaurie- Peyraguey being two examples.

Down the line, second growth Château d’Arche is set to complement its hotel with a new spa.

Simultaneously, an increasing number of châteaux, including Yquem, are now open to the public by appointment. Further afield the problem is persuading consumers to take the plunge and experience the delights and complexity of this great wine – and that’s where the second labels play a part.

This is not to say the grand vin is being sidelined. All producers agree that their ultimate goal in any given vintage is to make as much of the top wine as possible.

And with the increasing sophistication of viticultural and winemaking practices (pruning methods, selective harvesting, control of sulphur dioxide, barrel fermentation, ageing), as well as the botrytised potential of recent years, this has become more and more feasible.

But these are great wines that need time to open and develop in bottle. They also have the potential to age for a considerable length of time. The product of a natural phenomenon, botrytis cinerea or noble rot, they require skill, patience and experience to produce, so naturally there is a price to pay. Enter the second wine.

New intentions

Until the new millennium most Sauternes classed-growth second wines were what Pierre Montégut, technical director at first growth Château Suduiraut, describes as ‘a typical Bordelaise second wine, made without a clear guideline to production and style, from young vines and batches that were unwanted in the grand vin’.

Most producers look to their second wines as a more open interpretation of their top wine, but these days extra thought goes into the shape and form and how it is achieved. The second wine, after all, serves as both an introduction to Sauternes and a stepping-stone to the top wine.

Château Suduiraut even has two second labels – Castelnau de Suduiraut and Lions de Suduiraut.

Montégut explains: ‘As the selection for Suduiraut became increasingly rigorous from 2001 onwards, our tastings began to identify batches of wine that expressed themselves earlier than those for Suduiraut.

‘Some were more classical in style so are now aimed at Castelnau, while others were fruitier and flattering which is the style of Lions. The batches were then traced to individual parcels, which enabled us to draw up a map identifying the plots for each of thethree wines. It doesn’t always work 100% this way, but gets us very close.’

Castelnau, which was originally created in 1992, evolved like this, with Lions taking on a separate identity from 2009. As Montégut points out, it’s not necessarily a question of young vines but terroir, as there is a parcel of 60-year-old vines on sandier soils which is usually destined for Lions.

Nor is it a question of residual sugar: the three cuvées from 2013 all hover around 143g/l to 150g/l of sugar. ‘You need a certain concentration to allow the botrytised aromatics of Semillon to develop,’ he argues. Length of barrel-ageing and the percentage of new oak do, however, vary for the three wines.

In a structured way Suduiraut has created three cuvées for three different profiles:

• Suduiraut for the connoisseur with deeper pockets who is willing to bide his or her time;
• Castelnau for the eager, classical palate;
• Lions for the freewheeling, debutant consumer.

The last two are half the price of the grand vin. In a certain way this democratises decent Sauternes, allowing the first-time buyer a taste of good botrytised wine.

Style choices

While Suduiraut and Château Rabaud-Promis, with its second wine Promesse, have opted for a more full-blown, richer style for their second wines, Château Guiraud has taken the opposite tack.

‘We wanted a wine that was more spontaneous in style, something sapid and aromatic, which gives instant pleasure and is limited in its concentration, the idea being that it would bring new consumers into the fold,’ explains Xavier Planty, manager of Guiraud for the past 32 years and co-owner since 2006.

Consequently, the previous second label, Le Dauphin, was abandoned and Petit Guiraud was introduced in 2011. The 2013 version, which is presently being poured from magnum at La Chapelle restaurant, weighs in at 76g/l residual sugar.

As at Suduiraut, certain parcels at Guiraud have been identified for making the second label. But two other factors are brought into play when it comes to the balance of the wine.

Guiraud has more Sauvignon Blanc planted than many estates and the blend of 65% Semillon and 35% Sauvignon Blanc in the 2013 reflects this feature.

The other characteristic is that the search for concentration is less extreme. ‘Whereas we will never harvest grapes for the grand vin under 20% or 21% potential alcohol, those for Petit Guiraud are picked at 17% or 18% when the botrytis offers aroma but less concentration,’ explains Planty.

There are, of course, other factors such as pH and acidity that have an influence when it comes to judging the balance and concentration of a Sauternes.

Vintage, too, plays a part, with years like 2013 and 2014 offering greater acidity and perceptive freshness than richer, ‘solar’ years like 2015 and 2016. That being said, the majority of second wines I tasted from a range of vintages had a residual sugar level of between 113g/l to 127g/l and came across as balanced, with just the right degree of sweetness.

‘Our style is one of lightness and finesse with less residual sugar and our second wine, Lieutenant, mirrors this character,’ says Laure de Lambert, owner of first growth Château Sigalas Rabaud.

Fresh approach

Another tip, if you are searching for a little more freshness, is to take a look at the second wines from Barsac, one of the five Sauternes communes.

Located on a lower-lying plateau, Barsac – which has the right to label its wines as Barsac or Sauternes – has a reputation for acidity and freshness, a feature provided by the red, clay-like sand and limestone soils found in this part of the appellation.

Château Climens is the leading estate here and its second wine, Cyprès, is as good as it gets. Calling it a second label is almost abusive.

Created in 1984, the name Cyprès (‘cypress’ in English) was inspired by the fact that way back in the Middle Ages a cypress branch was issued as a receipt to prove that the tax for shipping wine from Barsac to Bordeaux had been paid. These days cypress berries have a more practical use as they are included in a preparation used to spray for grapevine moth at the biodynamic-certified Climens.

The production of Cyprès is based uniquely on tasting, with both the grand vin and second wine receiving exactly the same treatment when it comes to vinification, maturation, percentage of new oak and time of bottling.

The quality of the harvest is the fundamental factor at the outset. ‘There are no flying winemakers in the cellars tweaking the wines, as it’s all down to nature,’ says technical director Frédéric Nivelle. Thereafter the various batches of wine (between 15 to 25 batches, which is the equivalent of 150 to 200 barrels depending on the year) are tasted on a regular basis and the blend for the two wines is made gradually during the period of maturation, dependent on how each batch evolves.

The eventual result gives an average in terms of volume of 60% grand vin, 40% second wine – and on the evidence of tasting the 2015s side by side, it produces a Cyprès that is open and expressive early on, compared to the more intense but reticent Climens.

Of course, there is no second label at the great Yquem, but in a way this is just as well, as it would probably be another vehicle for speculation.

Essentially, the second wines being produced by the classed growths today are for drinking, the objective being to encourage a new clientele.

And with a slight change in mindset and the comprehension of quality and value they could help win the day for Sauternes in its battle for viability and global appreciation.

Sauternes at a glance

Area under production: 1,978ha (2016)

Communes: Barsac, Bommes, Fargues, Preignac, Sauternes

Production: 43,178hl or 5.8 million bottles (2016)

Yield: 21.8hl/ha (2016)

Growers: 142

Classed growths of 1855: 26 (45% surface area, 40% volume)

Grape varieties: Semillon (80%), Sauvignon Blanc (17%), Muscadelle (3%)

Soils: Sand, gravel, clay, limestone

Vintages:

Lively, fresh with good acidity and citrus notes (still with botrytised concentration): 2014, 2013, 2011, 2007.

Richer, rounder with tropical fruit notes: 2016, 2015, 2010, 2009.

Lighter and more uneven: 2012 (sometimes no grand vin made), 2008

See Lawther’s pick of second labels from Sauternes

Read more Decanter magazine articles online here

Most readers will be aware that the vast majority of wines are not built to last any significant length of time, and even fewer would be expected to develop beyond the five-year mark.

Many winemakers also now talk about a fashion for drinking even top vintages much sooner than in yesteryear, and some lament this.

Of course, it all comes down to preferences.

Drinking wines young is a great way of enjoying those primary fresh fruit characters, but cellaring ageworthy wines, or buying them at a later stage, can also offer great rewards as complexity develops in the bottle. And the wine, once opened, offers an opportunity to reminisce over years past with close company.

When the flushes of youth have settled down, they can also be exceptional with food.

The perennial dilemma is when to open that special bottle – the delicate balance between finding the right occasion without waiting so long that your wine silently fragments in the corner of the cellar.

Below are some top mature Californian wines from the last four decades, all of which should be good for drinking in 2018.

See also: Birthday wine buying guide for 2018

Mature Californian wines to try this year

Wines below are a collection of those tasted for Decanter by William Kelley in the previous two years

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What makes this a wine legend?

Wine Legend: Château d’Yquem 1921, Sauternes, France

Number of bottles produced: No record

Composition of blend: No record

Yield (hl/ha): No record

Alcohol content: 12.5%

Residual sugar: 112g/l

Release price: No record

Current price (at auction, 2009): £2,376 (bottle)

A legend because…

There are many outstanding vintages of this supreme sweet white wine, but none in the 20th century is more celebrated than the 1921. Decanter’€s Michael Broadbent, in Vintage Wine, describes 1921 as ‘Unquestionably the greatest [Sauternes] vintage of the 20th century, Yquem in particular being legendary.’€ The great richness of the wine reflects the vintage conditions of the year (see below).

Looking back

Yquem had 100ha (hectares) planted in 1921, compared to 113ha today. Back then, only a small amount of wine was bottled at the château, but Marquis Bertrand de Lur-Saluces, owner at the time, was a leading proponent of château bottling as a guarantee of authenticity. From the 1924 vintage, all the wine would be bottled at the château.

The people

During the First World War, Marquis Bertrand de Lur-Saluces served as an officer, in keeping with family tradition, before taking the reins at Yquem, aged 30. He presided over the château for more than 50 years until his death in 1968, when he was succeeded by his nephew Alexandre de Lur Saluces. Today the château is owned by LVMH (Moët Hennessy-Louis Vuitton); main shareholders since 1999, the group appointed Pierre Lurton as managing director in 2004. Just after taking over, Lurton revealed in a Decanter masterclass that 1921 is his favourite Yquem vintage.

The vintage

1921 was the driest of 75 vintages on record, and the hottest since 1893. The unusual heat and early autumn made it difficult for red Bordeaux but perfect for Sauternes. For the first time since 1893, picking began as early as the first half of September, on the 13th. The harvest lasted six and a half weeks, with 39 days of picking. By the time it was over on 27 October, pickers had passed through the vineyard five times. Yields were not high, as sharp spring frosts had reduced the crop. The extreme dry conditions led to unparalleled richness and concentration of the grape juice. Its exceptional quality would certainly have been recognised from the outset.

The terroir

The topsoil at Yquem is warm and dry, accumulating heat thanks to the smooth, flat pebbles and coarse gravel. The clay subsoil contains good water reserves, and there are several springs on the estate. Drainage pipes were installed in the 19th century to prevent waterlogging. Plantings are split between Sémillon (80%) and Sauvignon Blanc (20%), though the proportions are more equal in the final wine due to the latter’s greater productivity.

The wine

As 1921 saw the hottest summer since the phenomenal vintage of 1893, which also produced outstanding sweet wines across Europe, the grapes reached unusually high sugar levels. This resulted in both high residual sugar and high alcohol, yet the wine remained balanced. Numerous bottlings of the 1921 vintage were made in different countries -€ many of the surviving bottles were bottled in Belgium by Van der Meulen -€ but these are inferior to the château-bottled examples.

The reaction

Michael Broadbent, in his Vintage Wine, recalls drinking the wine on more than 30 occasions. The colour is quite dark, he says, ‘at best a warm amber-gold’€, and the bouquet ‘very rich, honeyed of course, peachy, barley sugar (boiled and spun sugar), intense yet fragrant, custard cream, crème brûlée yet again, but very true’.

On the palate: ‘from sweet to very sweet, depending, I think, on context, unquestionably rich, powerful, even assertive, great length and intensity, and supported by life-preserving acidity. One of life’€s sublime experiences.’€

Bordeaux authority David Peppercorn MW concurs: ‘€It is more like an essence than a wine, a unique experience.’

Legendary wine writer Edmund Penning-Rowsell drank the wine in 1983, remarking that: ‘It had something of the richness of a fine old sweet Sherry without the alcoholic strength. Amazingly concentrated, perhaps the chief quality of this wine, it remained almost surprisingly drinkable.’€

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More wine legends:

• Wine Legend: Krug 1928

• Wine Legend: Wine Legend: Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, La Tâche 1978

• Wine Legend: Heitz Cellar, Martha’s Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon 1974

Decanter presented a selection of South African wines that have won an award in this year's Decanter World Wine Awards.

At Wines of South Africa’s annual tasting in London, Intrepid, Decanter presented silver, gold, and platinum winners from this year’s Decanter World Wine Awards. The tasting took place on 13 September at Olympia, London.

The wines include:

• Flagstone, Treaty Tree Reserve Sauvignon Blanc-Sémillon, Elim, Cape Agulhas 2016
• Cape Point Vineyards, Isliedh, Cape Peninsula 2016
• Paul Cluver, Seven Flags Chardonnay, Elgin 2016
• Ken Forrester, The FMC, Stellenbosch 2015
• Flagstone, Music Room Cabernet Sauvignon, Western Cape 2014
• Babylonstoren, Nebukadnesar, Simonsberg-Paarl, Paarl 2014
• Tokara, Reserve Collection Cabernet Sauvignon, Stellenbosch 2013
• Lidl, Cimarosa Shiraz-Cabernet Sauvignon, Western Cape 2015
• Boekenhoutskloof, Porcupine Ridge Shiraz, Swartland 2016
• Rustenberg, Shiraz, Simonsberg-Stellenbosch, Stellenbosch 2015
• Rustenberg, Red Muscadel, Western Cape 2015

See all DWWA 2017 winners from South Africa

Discover more DWWA wines near you

Discover why De Bortoli, Noble One 1982 makes the Decanter wine hall of fame...

De Bortoli, Noble One 1982: The facts

Bottles produced 48,000

Composition 100% Semillon

Yield N/A

Alcohol 12.8%

Release price AUD$25 (about $81/£35 intoday’s money)

Price today £150 at The Wine Press

A legend because…

Although Australia has a long tradition of sweet wine production (mostly fortified), Noble One, first made in 1982 and labelled as ‘Sauternes’ until 1990, was a new departure. Placed as a ringer among a few dozen 1983 Sauternes in a blind tasting in 1987, I was one of the tasters who, while puzzled by the wine, acclaimed its quality. It was, I noted, ‘worryingly mature for a 1983 Sauternes’, but its plump, unctuous character gave it immediate appeal.

Looking back De Bortoli is a family winery, founded in 1928. In the early 1980s it was run by the late Deen De Bortoli. His son Darren had been enchanted by the 1975 Château Coutet he’d had drunk while a student at Adelaide’s Roseworthy College; moreover, Deen had already experimented with botrytis wines in the 1970s, though with little success. Their decision to embark on a significant production of a botrytis-affected Semillon did not meet with universal approval within the family, but they were vindicated.

The 1982 Noble One has gone on to win (on the Australian wine show circuit) more than 11 trophies and 46 gold medals. As the wine was re-entered into subsequent wine shows, it garnered 138 trophies and 425 golds. The De Bortolis have since made the wine every year except in washed-out 1989 and 2012. The vintage Preceding years in Riverina had been hit by drought, but in 1982 there was abundant rain, and growers were confronted with lots of botrytised fruit.

Initially abject at having to discard part of their crop, the growers were delighted when the De Bortolis offered to buy the best of it. This was something of a gamble on their part, as it was not immediately clear whether the mould was the noble botrytis cinerea or the less desirable brown rot. Fortunately it was mostly the former.

The terroir

The grapes came mostly from the De Bortoli vineyards in Griffith, an area within the Riverina region that has won a reputation for botrytis-affected wines, especially Semillon. Although the grapes were grown on differing soil types, there were some factors in common: moisture-retentive clay soils and regular morning dews that helped to provoke botrytis infection; while warm sunny days helped to concentrate and ripen the fruit. The use of flood irrigation also contributes to the necessary humidity for noble rot.

The wine

After a manual harvest, the juice is settled overnight, then clarified before being inoculated with yeasts to start fermentation, which can take up to three months. The 1982 was picked at a potential alcohol of more than 23%. Early vintages of what became Noble One were unoaked, but from 1990 the wine was aged mostly in tight-grained Seguin-Moreau barriques, although about 10% to 15% remains in tanks to preserve freshness.

The reaction

In 1986, Stephen Brook noted: ‘Lush, stylish botrytis nose. Plump, rounded, but very intense with delicious peachy fruit, and the botrytis bringing viscosity. Good length, but there’s a slight lack of acidity on the finish. Excellent.’

In 2009, Sarah Ahmed admired the wine: ‘The nose shows a spicy marmalade/orange-peel character with a barley sugar twist. Quite warm, with flavours of barley sugar, apricot and buttery bruléed apple tart. Good acidity still, with texture, tannin and a spicy marmalade finish.’

In the same year Australian wine writer Jeremy Oliver found it very evolved: ‘Now very mature with a complex, dusty and nutty bouquet suggestive of herbal and citrussy notes. It’s beginning to break down and dry out towards the finish but delivers charming intensity and elegance, finishing with savoury and vanilla aspects.’

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Premier Cru Classé Sauternes producer Château Suduiraut has released an 'entry level' dry white wine, Le Blanc Sec, demonstrating the trend for Sauternes producers to also produce more dry styles.

Château Suduiraut Le Blanc Sec released

Le Blanc Sec de Suduiraut will retail at around £13, around half the price of the château’s existing dry white, ‘vin de garde’ S de Suduiraut.

‘It is dry, fresh, fruity [and ready] to drink immediately,’ said Corinne Michot-Ilic, spokesperson Château Suduiraut.

‘It is more of an entry level dry white wine,’ she told Decanter.com. But the château said that it had chosen plots carefully for Le Blanc Sec, which was also ‘a wine of character’ designed to meet consumers demand for white wines with more personality.

An increasing number of Sauternes producers have turned to dry white wines amid a sluggish market for their signature sweet wines in recent years.

Suduiraut’s Le Blanc Sec is a blend of 67% Sémillon and 33% Sauvignon Blanc.

Six hundred cases were produced this year, but the Sauternes estate plans to double the volume next year. Suduiraut makes fewer than 500 cases of S de Suduiraut per year.

• Sauternes producers to open wine co-operative

Wider trend

Greater numbers of Sauternes and Barsac producers turned to making dry white wines when the yields of the 2012 vintage were particularly low.

Olivier Bernard, co-owner of Château Guiraud, previously told Decanter.com that the estate planned on doubling the amount of Clos des Lunes dry white wines produced over the next few years.

Some producers have said that they hope to change labelling rules, so that dry whites made in Sauternes can be labelled AOC Graves, as opposed to AOC Bordeaux as it currently is.

Related content:

Bordeaux 2015 scores: Full Decanter ratings revealed

See Decanter's Bordeaux 2015 scores and tasting notes here

Anson on Thursday: Bordeaux’s phantom white wines

There was a flurry of Bordeaux 2005 ‘10 years on’ tastings a few months ago, as we ticked over into

Cheval Blanc launches white wine after eight-year experiment

Jane Anson has the details...

Jane Anson hunts down two Bordeaux white wine-focused châteaux offering value and excellent quality, including one in the red wine Médoc heartland...

As soon as I tasted it again I knew it had been worth the two-hour drive up to the wilds of the Médoc Bleu, so-called because you have bypassed the green of the pine forest and the red (grapes) of the vines that dominate so much of this peninsula.

Here in Jau-Dignac-et-Loirac you are right up by the windswept ocean mouth, amid lighthouses and fishermans’ cabins, just a mile from the port of Saint Vivien where oyster farmers have started plying their trade again after a 20-year gap. This is where the skies above the Médoc suddenly open up endlessly above you, and you feel the sting of the salty Atlantic breezes so integral to the global spread of these wines.

The first time that I drove to visit a winery because I liked the taste of the wine was after a bottle of Vergelen Estate in a Cape Town restaurant back in 1996. Then after moving to Bordeaux in 2003, I remember asking the sommelier for the address of the house wine served at Le Chapon Fin restaurant. It was called Chateau La Garrigue and led me eventually to an unprepossessing address somewhere to the east of Libourne and stocking up on its excellent Bordeaux (in the interests of this column, I tried to contact them again this week but have drawn a blank).

Between then and now I have done this countless times – either visited or called up estates because tasting the wine makes me want to find out more. It’s one of the great joys of this job.

Château Poitevin itself is hardly an off-the-beaten-track discovery. Its wines have won many awards, and its photogenic owners Guillaume and Natacha Poitevin are well-versed in media interviews. I was part of the jury of the 2012 Cru Bourgeois Cup when it got star billing for its 2009 vintage. But I hadn’t tasted their tiny 1500-bottle production white wine until earlier this summer during a day organised by their oenologist Antoine Medeville.

‘Poitevin Blanc is just €13 consumer price when bought direct from the château. I know; you’d make the drive too’

It was this wine that had got me driving up to to the northern Médoc; in theory a classic sauvignon blanc/semillon blend that saw its first vintage in 2012, but one that pushed at the limits of what those grapes usually achieve. In the summer I tasted it alongside a room full of winemakers who were murmuring appreciatively at its flinty, gunsmoke edge that is rare to find in the white wines of Bordeaux. I sought out the winemakers and was told that the vines were on a gravelly plateau right next to those for the white wine of Château Cos d’Estournel; another brilliant white that majors on lean, savoury, mouthwatering flavours, but that retails for several times the price. The Cos Blanc is somewhere around £70 retail, while Poitevin Blanc is just €13 consumer price when bought direct from the château. I know; you’d make the drive too.

This has, in fact, been a month for interesting white wine discoveries. The other one I also tasted first over a lunch, but this time at a friend’s house on the banks of the Dordogne river and only had to travel as far as their next door neighbour to find out more.

This might be the only pure white wine estate in Bordeaux that I know of (Sauternes and Barsac excepted of course, although I guess you could just about squeeze Clos des Lunes in here). And the person crazy enough to launch a white wine-only venture in the world’s most famous red wine district? You’ll be happy to hear it’s an English woman. A viticulture and oenology graduate from Plumpton, Dawn Jones-Cooper launched her Nobody’s Perfect range of whites from Château de Monfaucon in Grezillac with the 2013 vintage.

‘Nobody’s needs another red Bordeaux, surely?’ Jones-Cooper replies cheerfully when you ask about the strategy. ‘Initially I wanted to make purely sparkling wine, but decided while waiting for the sparkling to be ready that I would launch a few dry whites. And they have taken off’.

Today this entirely biodynamic winery is producing 3,000 bottles (when the weather plays ball) across seven cuvées – three 100% varietals wines of muscadelle, sauvignon blanc and semillon, three 100% varietal Prestige Cuvées of semillion, sauvignon blanc and chardonnay aged in oak, and one blended wine. The first crémant should join them in 2017. And the refreshing attitude towards the creation of a new Bordeaux white doesn’t end there – the aim is to also keep alcohols low, at somewhere between 10° and 12°abv, again depending on vintage (‘things got a little bit higher in 2015’) as a result, she says, of consumer demand. I hope the strategy of ‘niche within a niche’ isn’t going too far for commercial success, but this is certainly an estate worth following over the coming years.

Wines to try

Chateau Poitevin Blanc AOC Boreaux Blanc 2015

Careful work with the lees – and no doubt the choice of Diam cork for the closure – keeps this on just the right side of reduction, emphasising a flinty, smoky minerality and giving the whole thing a sense of energy and grip. Just a brilliant wine. Sappy grilled apricots with a seam of rich lemon, all pulled up sharply on the finish with the menace of gunsmoke. This manages to combine the rare feat of stretching out in your mouth both upwards and forwards, with a salinity that ensures a mouthwatering encore. 90% sauvignon blanc, 10% semillon, 12.2%abv. 94 points.

Château de Monfaucon Nobody’s Perfect Cuvée Prestige Sauvignon Blanc 2015

Good depth of flavour to this biodynamically-farmed wine, with a silky mouthfeel and a sweetness that speaks of apricots with a toasted biscuit edge. Jones-Cooper assures that it is entirely dry, but ascribes the richness instead to specific picking method she uses called maximum potency harvesting (or MPH) that can increase the perception of roundness in the grape without sacrificing control over alcohol levels. One to research, but certainly the effect seems to be a stone-fruit emphasis to this sauvignon blanc, with attractive aromatics. 13%abv. 89

More Jane Anson columns:

Château Cheval Blanc will release its first white wine later this month, following nearly a decade of trials at the highly regarded Bordeaux estate. Jane Anson has tasted it...

Château Cheval Blanc in St-Emilion will launch its first Bordeaux white wine, Le Petit Cheval Blanc 2014, at the end of this month.

It’s taken eight years of experiments to get to this stage, according to the estate.

There are 4,500 bottles of the 2014 wine, a 100% Sauvignon Blanc. Production is expected to reach 20,000 bottles annually within a few years.

It is expected to sell for around £100 per bottle in the UK.

The move comes amid a resurgence for Bordeaux dry white wine.

Related stories

• Best Bordeaux 2015 dry white wines

• Anson: Bordeaux’s phantom white wines

Cheval Blanc white wine: How it came about

The vines come from plots that were formerly within Château La Tour du Pin Figeac (Moueix).

Cheval Blanc’s co-owners, luxury goods group LVMH and Albert Frère, bought the vines in 2006 after La Tour du Pin Figeac lost its classified ranking in St-Emilion.

Experiments with white wine on a small area began in 2008. The Cheval Blanc team field-grafted three different clones of Sauvignon Blanc.

In the most recent 2012 St-Emilion re-classification, 1.38 hectares of the vineyard was redrawn to be included within the footprint of Château Cheval Blanc itself.

That left 6.5 hectares for the white wine plan.

Cheval Blanc re-planted some parts of the vineyard and field-grafted others, giving some plants up to 40 years of age in terms of their rootstock.

The vineyard is 80% Sauvignon Blanc and 20% Semillon. The estate plans to add Semillon to the wine from the 2018 vintage.

‘We spent several years understanding what the terroir would give us and testing everything from clones to yeast strains for the vinification,’ Cheval Blanc technical director Pierre-Olivier Clouet told Decanter.com.

‘It is very important to us that this is a classical Bordeaux white, tasting more of our terroir than any overtly varietal flavours.’

More stories:

Best Bordeaux 2015 white wines

Top dry whites from the 2015 vintage...

Bordeaux dry white wines to try this summer

Anson on Thursday: Bordeaux’s phantom white wines

There was a flurry of Bordeaux 2005 ‘10 years on’ tastings a few months ago, as we ticked over into

Jane Anson reflects on the life of professor Denis Dubourdieu, nicknamed the 'Pope of wine' in Bordeaux for his far-reaching research.

Right up until a few weeks ago, it seemed possible that professor Denis Dubourdieu would beat his illness. Even cancer didn’t seem likely to best this indomitable man, who has been such a profound force for good in the world of wine.

But on 26 July professor Dubourdieu – who in 2016 was awarded both Decanter’s Man of the Year and the Légion d’Honneur – died in a hospice in Bordeaux, the city where he had spent so much of his professional life.

Winemaker, professor, researcher and teacher, he spent many years in laboratories researching into countless aspects of winemaking, from yeast strains to oxidation triggers. He did this first at the university’s Institute of Oenology and later at the Institute of Science of Wines and Vines (ISVV) that he was instrumental in the creation of, and which is today a world-leading multi-disciplinary wine centre.

• See a timeline of key moments in the life of Denis Dubourdieu

He never felt comfortable in cities, though.

He told me many times that he was happiest out in the countryside, whether in his vines, or on a boat sailing in the Arcachon bay, or horse riding through the Landes forest that banks the Barsac appellation where he was born.

‘The ISVV was his baby, and something of which he was justly proud of having achieved,’ said Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon, Roederer‘s chief winemaker and executive vice president.

Lécaillon paid tribute to Dubourdieu’s ‘finesse and precision in the vinification of white and rosé wines. He had a remarkable sensitivity to and understanding of bitterness. And this mastery gave him a particular signature in the making of red wines, where he always favoured understated elegance.

‘He was the perfect synthesis of theory and practice. Of oenology and viticulture. Of the laboratory and the pleasure of tasting. A friend.’

‘It is too soon and such a loss,’ said Véronique Sanders, who has worked with Dubourdieu at Château Haut-Bailly since 1998 and was also a former student of his.

‘He has been part of my professional and personal life for more than 20 years. We will miss him so much, as will the whole of Bordeaux. He was loved by the owners, the vineyard and cellar workers, his students and his colleagues at the University of Oenology.’

Personally, I will always be grateful to have spent a year as his student at the ISVV during the DUAD wine tasting diploma. He would walk into those classes like a rockstar, holding his students enthralled at the ease with which he shared his knowledge.

Dubourdieu was never afraid of voicing his opinion, and could be scathing of winemaking choices that he didn’t agree with – over-ripe grapes and over-extraction during maceration to name a few.

But he always reached his opinions through extremely rigorous research, and was always ready to share his reasoning not just with his students but those interested around the world through the publication of hundreds of research papers, and a consultancy business that took him to Japan, Italy, Spain, New Zealand and more.

His Clos Floridène has always been the insider’s choice for Bordeaux white wine and his Extravagence de Doisy Daëne the most over-subscribed of all Bordeaux sweet wines.

‘He was a true pope of wine,’ said Philippe Castéja, president of the Conseil de Crus Classés 1855, who worked with Dubourdieu as consultant at his own estates. ‘He had an openness to the world and to other ideas that was exceptional.

‘For Denis it was always about the wine and the vineyard, not his signature on it. The first time he came to visit Batailley when I asked him to work with me, he would only agree to take on the role once he had walked the entire vineyard’.

He was the true successor to the legends of 20th century Bordeaux oenology Emile Peynaud and Jean-Ribéreau Gayon.

His interests outside of wine also took him far and wide, from training in dressage riding with an ex-Olympics champion to interviews on Radio Classique in Quebec, where he shared his love of classical music.

The funeral will be on Friday 29 July in Barsac, where his family has been making wine since 1794, and where Dubourdieu was born at Château Doisy-Daëne in 1949. He leaves behind his wife of 40 years, Florence, and his two sons, Fabrice and Jean-Jacques.

• Read more about Denis Dubourdieu’s achievements

A 'supreme expression' of Hunter Valley Semillon, find out why Tyrrell’s, Vat 1 Semillon 1994 is a wine legend...

Why Tyrrell’s, Vat 1 Semillon 1994 is a wine legend…

Hunter Valley Semillon is one of Australia’s miraculous wines. Tasted very young, it can seem anaemic and feeble, notable only for its strident citric character. After five years of bottle age, it is transformed into a honeyed, toasty, complex wine, full of flavour despite its low alcohol. Tyrrell’s Vat No 1 is one of the supreme expressions of this underrated wine style. No wine has been awarded more medals on the Australian show circuit.

Looking back

Tyrrell’s is one of Australia’s great family wineries. The land was acquired and planted by Edward Tyrrell in 1858 and he produced his first vintage in 1864; the Tyrrell family has been making wines here ever since. Murray Tyrrell, who became head of the family in 1959, was still very active in 1994, but, aged in his 70s, was being assisted both by his son Bruce, the present head of the company, and by winemaker Andrew Spinaze, who still holds that position today. Then as now, Tyrrell’s remains hugely committed to Semillon, and produces three single-vineyard bottlings. Nonetheless, Vat 1 has always been conceived as the company’s top wine. It was first made in 1962 and known as Hunter Valley Riesling, when European grape and regional names were used with abandon. In 1990 the present name was adopted.

The vintage

A late bud-burst led the estate to assume the vintage would be fairly late. However, very warm weather in December and January speeded up the ripening, although it also led to bush fires, the smoke from which may have tainted some wines. The fruit for Vat 1 was picked by hand during the last week of February. Although the vintage as a whole was patchy in New South Wales, the Hunter Semillon grapes were in perfect condition.

The terroir

Vat 1 comes from two very old blocks within two vineyards, with a combined area of about six hectares. Short Flat was planted in 1923, while the oldest vines in Johnno’s Vineyard date from 1908. The two blocks are separated by just 800m. They flank the same creek and share the same alluvial sandy loam soils. Both blocks are unirrigated.

The wine

Australia is renowned (or criticised) for its high-tech approach to winemaking, but Hunter Valley Semillon has always been an exception. Vat 1 follows the usual pattern in being fermented in stainless steel tanks; thereafter it receives minimal lees contact in the tanks and is bottled early. It is bottle-ageing that transforms Semillon from a lightweight, neutral wine to one with extraordinary intensity. This ageing is undertaken by the winery itself, which gives some of its Semillons up to five years’ bottle age so as to allow its secondary characteristics to develop before the wine is released.

The reaction

The wine certainly pleased Australian judges in the regional and national shows; it garnered no fewer than 32 gold medals and 12 trophies. In 2007, Huon Hooke and Ralph Kyte-Powell noted: ‘The nose is mellow, quietly complex – and only lightly toasty. Melon, wood smoke, earth and honey lead the way. The palate is rich and unusually smoky.’ They scored it 95/100. Jeremy Oliver, in 2009, was blown away: ‘This complex, deeply layered Semillon has acquired plenty of richness and depth. Its smoky, meaty bouquet reveals nuances of buttered toast and dried flowers over rich notes of melon-like fruit. Its intense, exceptionally long core of assertive flavour drives onwards to a savoury, slightly earthy finish tightly wound around a fabulously taut acidity.’

Australian wine writer Ken Gargett shared his last bottle with friends in June 2014 and reported: ‘Refined, elegant, almost delicate. Finely balanced, with hints of spice and lemon and, with time, plenty of mango notes. Excellent length, mature and complex. Why leave it any longer as it is drinking so beautifully now?’

The facts

Bottles produced 30,000

Composition 100% Semillon

Yield about 35hl/ha

Alc 10.6%

Release price about A$15

Price today not available, but vintages from the late 1990s are listed at £50-£90, so the 1994 would probably fetch more.

As the room filled up for the Château Cheval Blanc and d'Yquem masterclass, with its line-up of extraordinary wines, there was a growing hum of excited chatter among the lucky few who snapped up tickets for this Decanter Fine Wine Encounter 2015 event.

Château Cheval Blanc and d’Yquem.

Guests’ excitement was only superseded by Sarah Kemp, Decanter’s publishing director, who was clearly thrilled to introduce the panel and ‘my dream team’; Château Cheval Blanc and d’Yquem director Pierre Lurton, Château Cheval Blanc’s technical director, Pierre-Olivier Clouet, and Château d’Yquem’s cellar master, Sandrine Garbay.

The masterclass started with a tasting of the red wines, the first from Chateau Quinault L’Enclos 2012, a St-Emilion Grand Cru close to the Pomerol borders, acquired from Alain Raynaud in 2008.

This wine was characterised by high proportions of Merlot which was in contrast to the Cabernet Franc dominant 2011 and 2006 Petit Cheval served next, made from grapes ‘100% from the Estate’ as described by Lurton.

Pierre-Olivier Clouet talked the attentive crowd through the intricacies of the Cheval Blanc estate, from picking the fruit by designated plots to vinifying these plots separately and finely blending the plots after a winter of oak ageing.

Cheval Blanc 2012, 2006, 2000

The next wines to be served were the Château Cheval Blanc 2012, 2006 and highly sought-after 2000.

Clouet described Cheval Blanc aromas; ‘usually the nose of our wine is divided into three parts:

• Vintage heat – when the vintage is cool the fruit is red, and when the vintage is warm the fruit is black.
• Cabernet Franc gives floral notes to the wine
• Freshness, including menthol notes.

When talking about the coveted 2000 Cheval, which retails above £600 ($800) per bottle, Clouet quipped, ‘I call the 2000 the cashmere wine of Cheval Blanc – cashmere because of the price I suppose’. His comments raised a chuckle around the room.

Y by Château d’Yquem

The tasting then moved onto the Yquem’s rare dry white wine, Y by d’Yquem 2012 and 2011.

The 2012, made from 75% Sauvignon Blanc and 25% Semillon, was the only wine made by d’Yquem in the vintage.

The team picked and started to make a Sauternes but Garbay said ‘after the first tasting we decided the quality was not enough to make d’Yquem’.

The Y grapes are picked before the Sauternes grapes with only a little botrytis on. This gives the wine a unique aroma and palate, Lurton said. ‘It’s not the typical Bordeaux white, it’s closer to Alsace white wines,’ he added, pausing for thought before concluding, ‘it’s unique’.

Château d’Yquem 2011, 2009, 2007 & 2005

It was now time for the sweets, and what sweet wines they were, with some of the best recent vintages Château d’Yquem has produced.

We started with the 2011, which had elegance and concentration, followed up with the slightly warmer vintage of 2009, the late picking 2007 and the classic 2005.

There was a murmur of approval and discussion after each wine, accompanied by animated discussion from the panel, including debating who the boss was, which provoked much laughter from the tasters.

‘When should I drink d’Yquem?’

The masterclass finished with questions from the floor, including ‘when, during the night, do I drink d’Yquem?’

Pierre Lurton’s fabulously animated answer was ‘that’s the eternal question… with the new elegant vintages, serve as an aperitif, no Champagne!

‘Actually don’t tell my bosses I said that,’ he joked. Yquem is part of the LVMH portfolio. Lurton added, ‘[Drink d’Yquem with] blue cheese, pancake with orange peel – but don’t add sugar – or finally in the middle of the night with a cigar.’

This fabulous answer was met with the largest, warmest round of applause from the audience and was the perfect way bring the masterclass to a close.

See also:

• Full report and photos of the Decanter Fine Wine Encounter 2015
• REPLAY: Live coverage of the DFWE 2015
• Next up: Spain & Portugal Fine Wine Encounter

Producer profile: Château d’Yquem

Fine-tuning in vineyard and cellar and a move towards freshness and finesse in both the esteemed Sauternes and dry white

Producer Profile: Château Cheval Blanc

Read our profile on Château Cheval Blanc, one of the premier estates on the right bank of Bordeaux...

Winemakers in Sauternes are incensed that France's government has approved what they believe is a 'ludicrous' plan to build a high speed trainline near to vineyards south of Bordeaux.

The fight against the Sauternes high speed rail line that will help to link Bordeaux and Dax/Toulouse took a serious step back this week when the French government approved the plans.

Winemakers were particularly angry that government officials appeared to ignore a survey published in March 2015 that saw 96% of 14,000 respondents opposed to the cost and environmental impact of the trainline.

‘The economic benefits for the entire Atlantic arc of southwest France outweigh the concerns,’ said French transport minister Alain Vidalies.

• READ: Sauternes winemakers angry at ‘crazy’ trainline proposal

The president of the Aquitaine region, Alain Rousset, has long been in favour of the project, as is Bordeaux mayor Alain Juppé.

But local environmentalists and Sauternes wine producers vowed to fight on, and are set to contest the trainline plan in Bordeaux’s supreme court.

‘We have the backing of local politicians such as Gilles Savary, who will be taking the argument back to parliament,’ David Ornon of Château Guiraud told Decanter.com.

‘There is a contradiction perhaps because the vines themselves will not be affected by the train line, but their ecosystem will be devastated. The Cirons river will be cut through in three separate places, and that will have an irreversible effect on the noble rot that gives Sauternes wine its identity.’

• READ: Andrew Jefford examines the plan for a high speed rail line near to Sauternes

The Ciron valley is the subject of studies by INRA (the French National Institute for Agricultural Research) and has also been placed under priority conservation by INRA’s Commission for Forestry and Genetic Resources due to threats to its genetic pool from climate change.

‘The argument put forward by [French rail network] RFF that there will be no adverse effects on the environment is ludicrous,’ said campaigners.

Two of the world’s greatest wines, Sauternes and Barsac, are in danger of falling off foodie radars. So, Ian D'Agata has rounded up a group of sommeliers, winemakers and chefs to bring you their best tips for matching Bordeaux's premier sweet wines with food.

• Sandrine Garbay, winemaker at Sauternes premier cru supérieur Château d’Yquem, advises overall: ‘When matching Sauternes and Barsac to foods, just remember to consider the vintage, age of the wine, presence or not of noble rot, and specific estate style, then you’ll never go wrong.’
• Alexandra de Vazeilles, owner of the outstanding Château de Bachelards estate, says ‘When friends come over, I often offer a glass with thin slices of Parma ham or jamón ibérico puro. The alliance of the Sauternes’ sweetness and ham’s saltiness is optimum, as one balances the other perfectly.’
• De Vazeilles also suggests ‘You can also pair it with pizza, as the tomato’s acidity will be balanced by Sauternes. Fresh vegetables as finger food (carrots, raw broccoli, celery) also work well.’
• Think about the presence of noble rot in each vintage; heavily marked vintages include 1976, 1989, 1997, 2001 and 2007, which are complex, deep and delicious, with notes of varnish and smoke, says Ian D’Agata. In vintages where there is little or none (1983, 1992, 2004), the wines have a more straightforward character – therefore what you might pair with one food in one vintage may require a totally different match in another.

• 10 rules of food and wine matching
• Will Predhomme, one of the best sommeliers in Canada and director of wine consultancy Predhomme Inc, underscores the importance of wine age. ‘I would reserve the youngest Sauternes for the aperitif and serve wines with age throughout the meal. Youthful Sauternes will have taut acidity and freshness driving flavours, while at 10, 15 years or older, wines evolve and become more complex as the meal progresses.’
• Don’t be afraid of hot food – ‘At our new restaurant 1760, while we call the food “modern, ingredient-driven”, dishes have an Asian influence and therefore spicy heat,’ says Paterlini. ‘Sauternes from lighter vintages complements some of our food well. Right now we have 2006 Rieussec on the list.’
• Griselda Rehe, head sommelier at Juvia in Miami, suggests an old reliable: ‘Oysters! Perk them up with a little spicy chilli black bean sauce and crispy shallots, and try a mediumrich Lafaurie-Peyraguey. The acid balances the sweetness and richness, making the wine more accommodating than you might think.’
• Kathy Morgan MS, wine director at Bryan Voltaggio’s Range and Aggio restaurants in Washington DC, adds: ‘Dishes of the American south often have sweet ingredients. I recall having a maple-glazed pork belly with candied pecans in a restaurant in South Carolina that made all the dry wines at the table taste thin and unpleasantly sour. Sauternes would have been a perfect match; the 2004 de Fargues, a rich wine from a lighter vintage, would have had the elegance to match the savoury elements of the dish.’

So it should now be clear that matching food to your choice of Sauternes/Barsac isn’t the one-way street of cheese or dessert it used to be. There are myriad possibilities, provided you do a little homework and know a thing or two about the bottle you are planning to uncork.

Award-winning wine writer Ian D’Agata covered Sauternes and Barsac for Decanter in the 2014 vintage en primeur tastings. The full version of this article appeared in the Decanter Bordeaux 2015 guide – subscribe to Decanter magazine here.

Read more:

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Producer profile: Château d’Yquem

Fine-tuning in vineyard and cellar and a move towards freshness and finesse in both the esteemed Sauternes and dry white

See the top ten St-Emilion wines from the 2014 en primeur tastings, tasted by Ian d'Agata.

The wines of Sauternes and Barsac are among France’s most famous. And the good news for wine lovers is that the 2014 vintage is exceptional for these wines, characterised by amazing total acidities and a noble rot bonanza (a very lemony rather than marmaladey botrytis that further contributed to the impression of high acidity). Much like 2007 or 2011, it is the wines of these communes that are very clearly the best of Bordeaux in 2014.

And thanks to the high acidity, it’s a vintage of truly unique Sauternes and Barsac, in which the average 130 grams per litre of residual sugar seems almost too low; many wines finish as if they were highly concentrated dry white wines (sometimes almost too dry), not unlike richer-styled, aged white Burgundies. In fact, total acidity sampled in Sauvignon Blanc berries was higher than ever in 2014: by comparison, 4.6g/l in 2010, 5.6g/l in 2011, and 7.6g/l in 2014.

If I have one caveat, it’s that some wines taste as if they were made with higher percentages than usual of Sauvignon Blanc, not a good idea. It is Semillon that makes for truly great Sauternes and Barsac.

In 2014, a cold and wet en d of April hampered flowering, contributing to very low yields another characteristic of the vintage: ‘When I tell Bordeaux red wine producers that my yields were lower than 10l/ha, they can’t believe it! Bérénice Lurton of Château Climens said. Summer was neither particularly sunny nor warm, ensuring very high acidity in the white grapes. However September to October were near perfect, recording the fourth highest average temperatures since 1896; three successive spells of rain were each followed by two to three weeks of warm, dry weather allowing for development of noble rot and sugar concentration by evapoation. But the heat and paucity of rainfall delayed the appearance of large volumes of noble rot: estates delayed most of their picking until the last two weeks of October. A minority of estates (including Château d’Yquem) were able to pick 50% of their total harvest by early October, allowing for wines marked by even greater freshness and very pure noble rot.

In ultimate analysis, the 2014 Sauternes and Barsacs are high refined wines that dance lightly on the palate. They lack the supple richness of the 2009 or 2001 vintages, but are more politely styled and devoid of heaviness, making for some of the easiest to drink Bordeaux sweet whites in memory. They will be absolutely ideal restaurant wines, enjoyable not just as aperitifs but with the whole meal as well.

Several white wine producers took the unusual step of performing the secondary malolatic fermentation of their Semillon or Sauvignon Blanc grapes, in an attempt to tame the high acidity that has been a feature of the Bordeaux 2014 vintage.

The cool summer months experienced during the growing season of Bordeaux 2014 meant that acidity levels in the grapes remained higher than usual even after ripening, with some recording malic acid levels of 6 grams per litre.

Professor Denis Dubourdieu, in his summary of the vintage, wrote that partial malolactic fermentation, ‘rarely practiced on white Bordeaux… was recommended for the most acidic lots. When well done, this made the wines rounder without detracting from their typicity’.

While some grape varieties, notably Chardonnay, routinely undergo malolactic fermentation in regions such as Burgundy, it is thought that this secondary fermentation – which typically takes place after the initial fermentation that turns sugar to alcohol, and is intended to turn harsh green apple malic acids into softer rounder lactic acids – can harm the vibrant aromatics of Sauvignon Blanc.

‘We preferred to use regular lees stirring and a higher proportion of Semillon in the blend to round out the flavours naturally in this vintage,’ Dominique Guignard of Chateau Roquetaillade La Grange told Decanter.com, as did Fabien Teitgen at Smith Haut Lafitte, who confirmed that he had carried out experimentation with malo on Sauvignon Blanc in the past, but felt it was detrimental to the purity of the fruit.

Chateau Mouton Rothschild routinely performs a partial malolactic on its Sauvignon Blanc grapes, with technical director Philippe Dhalluin going on record on several occasions saying that he tries to steer away from overly-herbaceous Sauvignon flavours – but this is one of the very few estates in the region to carry out the practice regularly.

At Chateau Olivier, where this year director Laurent Lebrun carried out a partial malolactic on small plots of both Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon, it is not likely to become a regular feature.

‘The grapes that have seen malolactic fermentation account for less than 5% of the final blend in the first wine,’ he said.

‘We have been pleasantly surprised by the quality of the result, but the majority of our plots achieved concentration and vibrancy naturally, with intense aromatics. Fresh acidities are essential for ageing potential in Bordeaux whites, and are a feature that we have no intention of changing.’

See more Bordeaux 2014 coverage:

This year's Decanter World Wine Awards International Trophy for the Best in Show White Single-Varietal under £15 went to McGuigan, The Shortlist Semillon, Hunter Valley, New South Wales, Australia 2007 (11%)

Tasted against:

• Gérard Bertrand, Réserve Spéciale Viognier, IGP d’Oc, Languedoc-Roussillon, France 2013
• Gerovassiliou, Single Vineyard Malagousia, Epanomi, Macedonia, Greece 2013
• Kutjevo, Graševina Turkovi´c, Slavonia, Croatia 2012
• Les Vignerons du Pallet, Muscadet Sèvre et Maine Le Pallet, Loire, France 2009

Profile:

Showcasing the diverse nature of the DWWA, it was a lovely array of varieties left to fight it out over this Trophy. Ultimately it was one of the wine world’s most renowned marriages – Hunter Valley and Semillon – that seized the prize, the wine acclaimed for its tremendous precision, weight and pure varietal expression.

When it comes to Australia and wine, names do not come much bigger than McGuigan but, as with many of Australia’s historic wineries, its beginnings are distinctly unpretentious. Its roots stretch back to the 19th century when Owen McGuigan, a dairy farmer, began working vineyards to bolster his finances.

Peter Hall is senior winemaker at McGuigan and can point to more than 35 years’ worth of experience in winemaking, including three vintages in California, two in New Zealand and a staggering 34 in Hunter Valley; his tenure at McGuigan began in 1996.

‘When I joined the company,’ he recalls, ‘the passion for winemaking was clearly evident. As a company, our roots are well and truly in the Hunter Valley and we’re committed to producing iconic wine styles that are inherent to this region. Young Semillon is fantastic, fresh and light, but it’s aged Semillon that is without a doubt unique to the Hunter, and we’re able to release mature Semillon into the market as a result of our maturation programme.’

In producing this Trophy-winner, Hall admits that he is heavily reliant on the Hunter’s climate and terroir to deliver a wine that will display the classic hallmarks of the region’s Semillon. ‘For us, this wine is all about showing the benefits of Semillon maturation,’ he says. ‘It develops rich honey and toast characters with extended cellaring, and the 2007 vintage is a classic example of how this style evolves over time.’

See the full information about this wine

Written by Decanter