2003 Château d’Yquem Sauternes

What Angels Drink

Where to begin?

First, the name. There are a handful of wines that I have specifically put on a bucket list. Wines I want to drink before I die. Names like Château Petrus, Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, Dom Pérignon, Château Cheval Blanc, and, yes, Château d’Yquem.

Second, the style of wine. Sauternes is botrytized semillon and sauvignon blanc (this one is 80% of the former, 20% of the latter) and it’s delicious. I wrote up a Sauternes-style wine from Sonoma County, and I’d still recommend that wine without hesitation. However, this… this is something else.

Let me just burst any bubble you might have here: this is expensive wine. This is world-renowned, expensive wine. A 375ml half-bottle of 2003 Château d’Yquem is $150–$200.

OK, so what’s it like?

First, the color is a perfect gold. It’s truly gorgeous. Swirling the glass even lightly shows the viscosity one would expect from a dessert wine. No surprises here.

The surprises begin when you get your face anywhere near this stuff. The nose is soft and lustrous, and shows off a lightly sweet honey note, along with a hint of bright, sharp cheese, and a nuttiness that comes off to me like candied cashews. I am so excited to be able to use candied cashews in a wine review.

The wine is full-bodied, but not heavy. It doesn’t coat your mouth, it just kind of covers the whole thing. Does that not sound dissimilar to you? I’m not sure how else to describe this mouthfeel—it is both full-bodied and light on the tongue. And I’m not sure how.

Notes of honey and nuttiness from the nose mix with a hint of lemon zest, but more than that, with a caramel note that, like the rest of this wine, stays light and soft while also feeling downright elegant. Luxury in a glass.

I wish this wine was less expensive. I wish I could have it all the time. But, like many of the world’s finest things, high demand must be counterbalanced by high cost, because it is simply impossible to make enough of something this good to satisfy everyone who wants some.

However, if you have a chance to drink this wine—whether at $400/bottle or $40/glass—give it a go. I cannot imagine the 2003 Château d’Yquem disappointing anyone.

2003 Château d'Yquem Sauternes

2003 Château d'Yquem Sauternes

2008 Gamble Family Vineyards Sauvignon Blanc

Hot Days, Cool Wine

The days have been hot here in Northern California. We’ve been joking that 2010 is the first year on record in the East Bay with no spring. One day it was raining and cold, the next day it was 95 degrees.

Hot days call for crisp, chilled white wine (or rosé, of course). This Yountville single-vineyard sauv blanc is just what the global warming ordered.

I have something of a love affair with sauvignon blanc. I was one of those guys who wouldn’t drink white wine. It wasn’t even that I necessarily didn’t like white wine, it was that I thought if I drank it, it made me some kind of wuss. Now, at 6’3″ and what my mother would lovingly refer to as a “husky” build, I don’t think too many people would have made an issue of pointing out my wussiness in carrying a glass of white wine around a party, but peer pressure’s a bitch.

So when I started drinking white wine, and started liking it, sauvignon blanc was a big part of that. Possibly just because it wasn’t chardonnay. Now that I’m a big proponent of drinking white wine (I cringe when people say “well, I really only drink red wine” like they’ve had all the whites on the planet), I’ve found reasons to like most of them.

I usually like a stinky sauv blanc. This isn’t that. The 2008 Gamble is very light in the glass, almost clear. Sauvignon blancish to begin with, for certain. The nose features notes of green apple and wet grass—some of the “stinkiness” I like.

On the palate, however, no stink/stank/funk/whatever. The wine is light bodied, dry and crisp, featuring notes of fuji and green apples, and some underripe tart honeydew melon. The finish lingers, featuring mostly the less-tart fuji apple on the back end.

Nice. Real nice, crisp and “refreshing” (I still struggle with using that to describe any wine, really). Perfect for hot days. Not a ton of acidity, and a hint of barrel-aging might make this a little more of an acquired taste for hardcore sauv blanc fans, but I can easily recommend it.

Verdict: B+

2008 L’Ecole No 41 Columbia Valley Semillon

School’s In Session

Semillon grapes

On the first full day of the Wine Bloggers’ Conference, the assembled wine blog whateverspherites were—well, treated, I suppose—to a white wine “speed-tasting” round. 12 white wines in the course of 1 hour is a marathon that I’m not sure I’d want to do again. It was a huge crowded room, 30-or-so tables of 6-8 bloggers each, and the winery representatives had five minutes to give us their spiel.

One wine—and I think the fact that it was the first that I tasted cannot go unmentioned—truly stood out for me. In fact, this classic Bordeaux-style blend of 89% semillon and 11% sauvignon blanc was among the best Washingtonian whites that I tasted over the long weekend.

L’Ecole No 41 is a winery located in Frenchtown, WA, just outside of Walla Walla, named after the schoolhouse the winery now occupies (“l’ecole” is French for “the school”) and the Washington school district number that the schoolhouse once belonged to.

Founded in 1983, L’Ecole No 41 is one of the original wineries in the Walla Walla area, having opened for business before the Walla Walla Valley AVA was even officially codified.

But enough of the winery; what of the wine? The winery’s historical place in the Walla Walla Valley AVA notwithstanding, this particular wine is made from grapes grown in the Columbia Valley AVA.

The wine is a very light straw yellow in the glass, and the nose features notes of melon and of a light—faint, even—honey sweetness. The wine is medium-bodied and tastes fresh and bright. Melon and pair dance on the palate, and a pleasant minerality keeps everything in check.

The wine would be an A-, but there is one problem: it’s hot. The 2008 L’Ecole No 41 Semillon clocks in at 14.2% ABV, very high for a white wine in general, and not balanced very well. It drinks hot, and while I would love to recommend it with food like seafood pasta, the alcohol level makes that difficult.

Still, it’s a very good wine on its own merits. Well recommended.

Verdict: B+