Sauternes

Sauternes is home to sweet wine producers such as Yquem, Raymond-Lafon and Rieussec – giving rise to arguably the very best dessert wines in the world. The diversity of the terroir and fiercely independent nature of estates means that each wine is very personal. The end result is usually a golden, sumptuous and intricate wine with individual characteristics depending on the producer.

Sauternes wines usually make use of ‘noble rot’ or botrytis cinerea. This special type of mould requires a unique terroir to flourish and Sauternes can provide this. The small tributary of Ciron is perhaps the biggest contributing factor – as it flows towards the warmer Garonne a moist mist develops that lingers over vines during dawn. This early-morning moisture encourages the development of the botrytis cinerea spores and, when it evaporates each day, it dries out the vines and their fruit. This ensures that the ‘noble rot’ will not become the destructive ‘grey rot’. The rot then dehydrates the grapes and concentrates their sugars without contributing any mouldy flavours. In comparison the grey rot, which thrives in consistent damp, simply degenerates the grapes into a foul-smelling (and foul-tasting) mush.

Sauternes is an illustrious region producing sweet whites of stratospheric quality and should not be overlooked by any budding wine connoisseur.

Soils: Gravels, clays and limestone
Size: 1,800 hectares
Output: 4,500,000 bottles
Type of wine produced: Powerful yet delicate sweet white wines
Grapes: Sauvignon, Semillon, Muscadelle