Château
d'Yquem

SAUTERNES & BARSAC

Dating back to the 15th century, an impressive manor house - more of a fortified farm than a château - overlooks the Sauternes coutryside from a hill forty kilometres south of the city of Bordeaux.

This building was famous as long ago as the Enlightenment. Its name: Château d’Yquem.

The wine, a miracle of nature, owes its exquisite quality not only to a unique terroir and the professionalism of the Yquem team in the vineyard and the cellar, but also to a microscopic fungus (Botrytis cinerea) found in the Sauternes region and especially at Yquem. This divine nectar with a fabulous golden colour is famous from Moscow to Washington, by way of Seoul, London, Hong Kong, Tokyo, etc.

In the autumn, morning mists give way to sunny afternoons. If accompanied by an easterly wind, conditions are just right to send pickers out to harvest the hundred hectares of vines, seeking only the finest Sémillon and Sauvignon Blanc grapes affected by “noble rot,” which concentrates both sweetness and flavour.

The sweet, botyrtised gapes are carefully removed with small secateurs in order not to harm the remaining grapes that have not yet reached 20 degrees potential alcohol.

In an average year, pickers go over each vineyard plot six different times – as things have been here done since the 19th century...

The grapes are pressed as soon as they arrive at the cellar and the juice is immediately put into new oak barrels for fermentation.

The wine is then aged in these same barrels for the next thirty months, during which it is regularly topped up and racked.

Since 1999, the L.V.M.H (Moët Hennessy - Louis Vuitton) group have been majority shareholders of this estate rated a Premier Cru Supérieur in the 1855 classification, and Pierre Lurton is the manager.

Yquem’s philosophy has been the same for the past five centuries: to cooperate with nature to produce an average of just one glass of this famous wine per vine.

It is extremely rare for the entire crop to be sold under the Château d’Yquem name, and no Yquem at all is produced in disappointing vintages. Nine vintages were thus not marketed by Yquem in the 20th century, and 2012 is the first one missing in the 21st.

Quality comes at this price!