subject: 2009 Sauternes - How To Bag The Best Value of The Vintage [print this page] 2009 Sauternes - How To Bag The Best Value of The Vintage
Where do you start with selecting Sauternes when every wine is different and the price range is as wide as the Grand Canyon? The 2009 Sauternes vintage is a great example, made more difficult because there are so many good wines to choose from!
Anyway, here in the tasting room I've got the 2009 Sauternes all lined up in a row just to see how they're coming along. So I thought while I'm here I could give you a hardened Bordeaux wine expert's view of the choice ahead of you. It might help you bag (or crate!) some of the absolute stars of the vintage.
Now 12 bottles of the same Sauternes is an awful lot to have in your cellar so why not make it more variable? If you get the chance, pick and mix your own case. And maybe I could just offer a few suggestions.
1. Mix Top Priced Wines With Value Of The Vintage' Wines.
In the 2009's there are four or five wines which are very high priced and one of the advantages of pick and mix is that you can maybe dilute those high prices by mixing in with some lesser priced wines.
I'm thinking of the high priced wines like Suduiraut, Coutet, Chateau de Fargues, Rieussec and soon, Climens and d'Yquem - maybe you can mix these with some of the real bargains of the vintage like Raymond Lafon, Doisy-Vedrines, and Domaine de l'Alliance.
Though don't exclude the mid range wines, the wines that came out at the prices we were expecting, such as Guiraud, Clos Haut-Peyraguey, Lafaurie-Peyrageuy, Rabaud Promis, and Sigalas-Rabaud because they're all good.
2. Mix A Case That Varies The Drinking Age
The other thing is you might want to use the mixed case to vary the ageability of the wines. It's awfully boring when all the wines in a case become drinkable all at once.
Why not have some wines which are for earlier drinking like Chateau Liot, then maybe some of the bigger wines that are more up front and obvious to start with like Lamothe-Guignard, Chateau de Myrat wonderful wines, but which are probably going to be the best in five years rather than 50 years!
You could mix these with wines like Guiraud and Clos Haut-Peyraguey which will probably be super drinking in ten years and then maybe some Yquem, Climens, Coutet, or Chateau de Fargues, which will be wonderful in probably fifty to a hundred years!
So those are just a few ideas about a very special vintage. Generally, cases come in 12, 75ml bottles or 24, 37.5 ml half bottles, so bear that in mind when making your selections.
