The Bordeaux News Is: Sweet

The bad news from Bordeaux is that the 1996 reds are uneven in quality--only really fine in the northern Haut-Medoc--and extremely expensive. You are best advised to wait for the 1997 (a very early harvest, always a promising sign) and buy as many of the best 1990 wines as you can before they disappear.

The good news is the fine quality (and reasonable prices) of the 1996 Sauternes. This is the first great vintage since that splendid trio of 1988, 1989 and 1990. The wines are balanced and concentrated and have an enticing freshness as a result of high acidities. They are also very consistent. Nearly all the top properties have produced top-class wine.

Making Sauternes is a curious business. Totally unnatural, in fact. Every other agriculturist, market gardener, fruit-cropper and viticulturist will wait for optimum ripeness of his produce and then rush out and harvest. Not so in Sauternes. The crop will deliberately be left out to rot on the vine.

To produce fine Sauternes, you need, during the month after all the other grapes have been picked, a climatic pattern that combines a certain amount of humidity with periods of dry, sunny weather. The humidity encourages the formation of rot. The dry, sunny days ensure that it is “noble” Botrytis cinerea, not ignoble gray or black rot. Nobly rotten fruit will produce a wine of balanced sweetness with an intriguing spicy, almost citrus peel flavor. Fruit that is rotten in the usual way will make nothing palatable at all.

Down in the Sauternes area, south of Bordeaux, the vineyards are divided by a stream called the Ciron. When its cold spring-fed water unites with the warmer, slowly flowing Garonne River, it tends to produce a thick morning fog, similar to the fog in San Francisco and the southern Napa. The sun burns away the mist during the morning, and by 2 p.m. you can see the berries glistening with moisture left by the fog.

This is the origin of the rot. The B. cinerea fungus forms on the surface of the grape and breaks the skin; the berry shrivels and is attacked by a penicillin-type mold.

If you harvest the grapes at this point--and you will usually have to collect your fruit in several stages over as much as a month because the B. cinerea attack is uneven--you can make an intensely sweet, concentrated wine. What you do not want is rain, which will quickly transform your noble rot to something vinously useless.

This rot-inducing weather pattern is precisely what happened in the autumn of 1996. The end of September was rainy, but October was excellent. The B. cinerea attack was even, allowing a smooth harvest. Pickers moved in passes through the rows of vines every five days or so. Little by little, after each harvest, the wine was pressed, then transferred to barrels to ferment slowly and mature.

I visited the Sauternes area in April. As usual, I paid a visit to Cha^teau d’Yquem and Cha^teau de Fargues, which are under the same ownership.

Visitors are not allowed to sample the new wine, but I took the opportunity to judge the 1988, 1989 and 1990 alongside each other. The 1990 Fargues and the 1989 D’Yquem were my favorites, and I received a nod of approval from the resident managers for having made the correct choices.

I then drove to Clos-Haut-Peyraguey.

Here I sampled, blind, most of the other classed growths. It was a splendid tasting. The balance, finesse and pure ripeness of fruit were consistent. None of the first growths was less than “good.” Many of the seconds were “fine.”

Finally I went to Climens where I must have sampled at least six elements. The final blend is not made until a year later. This blend would be, I considered, the best of all: 19.5 out of 20 points, potentially. Cha^teau Coutet was very fine (19.0), and among the fine or fine-plus wines (17.5-18.5), I included Cha^teaux Doisy-Daene, Doisy-Vedrines, Lafaurie-Peyraguey, Malle, Nairac, Rieussec and La Tour Blanche.

Here are my notes on these top 1996 Sauternes.

* Cha^teau Climens: I tasted this at the cha^teau; six or more lots in old and new wood. My general impression was of a splendidly clean, elegant, concentrated wine with very lovely balance and fruit. Truly excellent.

* Cha^teau Coutet: Fat, rich and concentrated. Lots of depth, but size as well. A true Sauternes. Full, oaky, rich, Very complete. This is a very lovely example. Marvelous balance. Plenty of drive at the end. Very fine.

* Cha^teau Doisy-Daene: Impressive nose. Good depth, concentration and style. Plenty of botrytis. Fullish, honeyed, peachy. A lovely racy style. Most impressive. Very long and lots of dimension. Needs time. Fine plus.

* Cha^teau Doisy-Vedrines: Youthful and slightly raw, but good concentration. This has very good intensity and class. A lovely, composed example of excellent harmony. All in place. Good botrytis. Lovely style. Needs time. Fine.

* Cha^teau Lafaurie-Peyraguey: Rich and fat on the nose. Some Sauvignon Blanc shows. Medium-full. Very lovely fruit and balance. Long and subtle on the palate. Very good fresh fruit. Still youthful. But long and fine-plus.

* Cha^teau de Malle: Elegant fruit with a touch of oak. Good botrytis on the nose. Delicate. Very harmonious. Very lovely fruit, complex and fresh, and very, very long on the palate. Medium to medium-full. Good intensity. Lovely long aftertaste. Very classy. This is fine.

* Cha^teau Nairac: Excellent concentrated fruit. Lots of botrytis. Fullish. The oak effect really quite marked, even a little hard. But the wine has very good fruit and is concentrated and intense. Youthful. Needs time but fine harmony. Fine quality.

* Cha^teau Rieussec: Quite closed. Quite high in alcohol, evidently. Rich, fat and concentrated underneath. A bit heavy, but plenty of wine here. Slightly ungainly at present. Plenty of depth. Doesn’t quite sing today but the follow-through is very impressive. Surely fine.

* Cha^teau Sigalas-Rabaud: Lots of quality and concentration here. This is most impressive. Classy too. Fullish. Youthful. Very good grip. Splendidly concentrated fruit. Fat and rich. Very good drive of acidity. Complex, youthful. Very fine quality.

* Cha^teau La Tour-Blanche: Good concentration. Quite oaky. Stylish and with plenty of botrytis. Discreet, youthful. Excellent grip and vigor. Fine, fullish, concentrated fruit. Long, complex. Very stylish. Fine plus.

Prices are reasonable. Futures prices range from about $25 to $35 a bottle for the Suduiraut and Rieussec on up. You’d be paying twice as much or more for the equivalent quality in red wine.

Clive Coates is author and publisher of the monthly fine wine magazine the Vine. For further details and a free sample issue, write to 76 Woodstock Road, London W4 1EQ, England, or fax 011-44-181 995 8943.