Château Suduiraut Sauterne for pleasurable sipping
We’re having fun watching the exclusive Apple TV Series “Drops of God”, a must see for ardent oenophile wine geeks. See the First Season “Drops of God” Trailor here.
Tonight, we watched the episode where they relished the ultimate Sauterne dessert wine, Château d’Y’quem, we pulled from the cellar a suitable second tier alternative. It was great fun and delicious sipping with fresh fruit, nuts and artisan chocolates. While not quite a First Growth equivalent, Château Suduiraut is never-the-less a 1er Cru Classe rating, for a fraction of the price of the ultra-premium super label. The Château d’Y’quem that we hold in our cellar, is indeed being held for special occasions, as noted that several are birth year vintages of our kids and grandkids.
Our cellar records indicate we have a dozen plus bottles of this wine, across a half dozen vintages. This bottle was the oldest vintage in our cellar, that I pulled somewhat at random, but was the appropriate selection for proper cellar management. At 25 years, it was delicious and had much life left. Thankfully we still have five bottles of this release for future enjoyment. The CellarTracker drinking window was shown as through 2026, which I edited to extend out to 2030.
Château Suduiraut 1er Cru Classe Sauterne
This is a special wine, suitable for special occasions, and ideal for an intimate casual sipping such as tonight. We enjoyed this same wine at our special get-away weekend anniversary dinner celebration at “Goosefoot Restaurant” Chicago, back in 2019, as featured in this blogpost - Goosefoot Chicago Anniversary Celebration Dinner. We also featured this wine in two other special tastings’blogposts - Super Big Red Wine Flight for Grilled Beefsteak Dinner, and “A Night in Sicily” Italian Village Donnafugata Covid Lock-in Virtual Wine Dinner.
These premium quality Sauterne dessert wines can have drinking windows as long as fifty years, and more in top vintages. Tonight, at twenty four years, the foil, label, and most importantly the fill level and cork, were pristine, like a three year old. The giveway of the age was the color has darkened from the golden straw color, upon release, to dark golden, and now to a weak tea color. Aside the color, it didn’t appear to have changed whatsoever in the six years since that tasting, except that it may have taken on a subtle mid-palate tone of smokiness, in addition to its earlier, traditional tasting profile.
At that celebration dinner I wrote, “We enjoy sweet unctuous desert wines with salads, cheese or deserts. This was a nice finisher, a perfect complement to the final course.”
The history of Château Suduiraut, dates back to the 1600’s. It was classified as a Premier Cru during the official 1855 wine classification programme. The French conglomerate AXA Millésimes acquired Suduiraut in 1992.
Golden honey, dark amber colored, full bodied yet delicate, nicely balanced fruit and floral aromas, complex roasted and candied notes of apple, vanilla and honey, medium sweetness and a long smooth silky finish. Not as sweet and unctuous as some vintages, the fruit is more subdued lacking the apricot nectar and honey of some vintages. This showed plenty of botrytis, with predominate notes of smoke, marzipan, almond, ripe apple, and hints of vanilla on the tongue cloying finish.
RM 91
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate rated this wine 90-93 points, Wine Spectator, 90 points.
https://www.cellartracker.com/w?18468