SAUTERNES

The first wines of Sauternais were certainly red. We make it whites for the XVIIth century, but these were dry and so thin as the Dutch traders needed to strengthen them with some brandy. In 1797, Thomas Jefferson, the future president of Etat-Unis, acquired some bottles of Yquem. He wrote a bit further that Sauternes was the best white wine of France - after the champagne and the hermitage. We ignore when we began to make syrupy in Sauternais. We say to Yquem that because of a late grape harvest in 1859, the grape was attacked(affected) by Botrytis. of the others believe to know that the virtues of the noble decay were revealed 23 years earlier by a German wine grower of the name of Focke, Which came from the rhénane region. Be that as it may, Yquem syrupy 1859 made sensation for the court(yard) of Russia, where we liked wines of France. The best domains, Yquem, Rieusec, Suduiraut, are on mounds close to the Ciron, stream where from rises mists morning convenient to Botrytis. The superiority demonstrates of Yquem, who occupies the best site, comes from the perfection of the wine-producing methods and the grape harvest of the only grains(beads) botrytisés by sort out successive and of the displacement of all the wine when a year is considered insufficient.

The quality of numerous wines of the naming sauternes, which can be claimed by those of Barsac, was improved for some years thanks to a more discreet sulfitage. Nevertheless, sauternes youngs remain often disappointing. It is necessary to indicate that the regulation(payment) of the naming of allows not sauternes, contrary nearby Cérons to benefit from a displacement in the naming grave. The only choice offered to the wine growers of the Sauternais is to sell their wine as sauternes when it is syrupy or as dry Bordeaux.