Anson: Tasting the celebrated Sauternes 2001 vintage

The hashtag #sweetwinehalloween was one of the small pleasures of Instagram last October, with wine estates from Sauternes, Rivesaltes, Jerez, Madeira and Malvasia getting involved by posting photos of their wines next to pumpkins and cobwebs.

Special respect goes to Château Climens for posting images of the entire team dressed in full Halloween gear (photo below).

It was started, I believe, by The Waverly Inn in New York, and it turned out to be a clever way to show the impact niche marketing can have on a style of wine that still needs to connect to its audience.

Scroll down to see Jane Anson’s Sauternes 2001 tasting notes and scores

These kind of word-of-mouth initiatives are essential because there still seems to be a ‘however, but, despite this, nonetheless’ hanging in the air when someone is discussing Sauternes.

This is true even with a vintage as undisputedly excellent as 2001, and even for a tasting of only 1855 classified estates – as this one was.

It could be because this is an appellation in retreat. There has been a decline of 24% in volume and 15% in surface area over the past 20 years.

The cost of vineyard land is also falling, dropping 15% between 2016 and 2017 and now standing at €30,000 per hectare.

That’s around the same as AOC Graves but a fraction (and I mean generously 10%) of the prices reached in the red wine appellations that were recognised in the 1855 Classification.

This despite the fact that the 19th century Bordeaux wine brokers were deciding the ranking on market positioning. They found only four châteaux to award as First Growth among the reds but a full 11 sweet wine châteaux in Sauternes and Barsac, with Yquem above all the rest as a ‘Premier Cru Supérieur’.

Before World War One, sweet wines accounted for 35% of Bordeaux’s production, while today they barely make it to 3% of overall production.

They have struggled to find their place in today’s market, despite the fact that you only have to spend a little time tasting wines like these to understand that they are worth saving.

Their history is scattered with tsars and European royalty, and the style is irreplaceable. Weather conditions that ensure the arrival of botrytis cinerea, or ‘noble rot’, are far from assured each year, and leave such concentrated juice in the grapes that yields are typically 10-15 hectolitres per hectare (hl/ha) compared to 40-50hl/ha in red wines.

The appellation also suffers from having Bordeaux’s red wine rules applied to it, when in reality it often succeeds in vintages that are dismissed for the majority of the region.

Take 2007, 2013 and 2017, for example; all brilliant vintages in Sauternes, but far more difficult in the major red wine appellations.

Even 2001, which we are tasting here, was not immediately recognised for its brilliance in the red wines. In Sauternes, by contrast, it was clear from the start that things were extremely special.

And where great red Bordeaux often needs 10 years to reach its drinking window, Sauternes can take far longer – but then keeps gathering in complexity.

‘Where red Bordeaux can often go through a dumb phase from three to six years [old], Sauternes tends to find the same thing a little later, often when eight to 10 years old,’ says Pierre-Antoine Castéja, of Château Doisy-Védrines.

‘It means you either need to drink them very young, when they are rich and luscious, or wait a little and have them once they have reached 15 years old or more.’

Drinking Sauternes 2001 now

The Sauternes 2001 vintage, now 20 years old, is perfect to showcase this theory.

With that extra decade in the bottle, the best in this tasting had taken on a savoury, dried fruit quality, with walnut, campfire and saffron notes, while being mouthwateringly tender and utterly moreish – still with a kick of ginger and lime zest.

As is often the case in Sauternes, a high quality vintage also coincided with an abundant year. Most estates recorded yields of around 20hl/ha, at the top end of what you expect.

This was because there was a rapid and intense spread of botrytis from rainfall in early October, coupled with good weather that remained throughout the month and allowed abundant and even harvesting.

Sandrine Garbay, Yquem’s technical director, said, ‘The rains in early October were supposed to be followed by heavier storms that could have ruined the harvest, but in the end the weather turned ideal, with a drying eastern wind, plenty of sun, cool night-time temperatures…everything that allowed for concentration of flavours and the ability to harvest whole bunches that were evenly covered with noble rot.

‘Every day we were filling two barrels with grapes, smooth as clockwork. If only that happened every year.’

See Jane Anson’s tasting notes and scores for 16 Sauternes 2001 wines, including Yquem

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