France Adventure – Wednesday, May 28, 2014 – Sauternes Day and Noble Rot

Bonjour les amis!  Hello, friends and welcome back to Cépage et Cuisine, Mary’s and Brian’s wine and food blog.  We’re continuing with our exploration of the Bordeaux region on our wine, cuisine, and cultural vacation in France.

I drove this morning to Montagne where there is an honest-to-goodness boulangerie.  On the way, there is this tiny chapel in a vineyard.  It’s a little bigger than a vineyard tool shed.  

I didn’t learn anything about its history, how long it has been there, whether it was part of a larger community.  It’s just out there in the middle of a vineyard.  

Perhaps there’s a relationship with this nearby château.  If we ever return here, I’d like to learn more about it.  In any event, it’s a beautiful image, ornate in its architecture, sitting among the vines, very peaceful.

Montagne is an ancient village, evidenced by the church’s Romanesque style, which is older than the Gothic style of Saint-Christophe-des-Bardes and even Saint Émilion.

The boulangerie prize of the day was a tartelette aux pommes, an apple tart.

Today is Sauternes day, about an hour’s drive to the southwest, across the Entre-Deux-Mers and on the other side of the Garonne River. 

Below again is the Bordeaux map, again with credit to Wine Spectator. 

We’re based just to the east of Saint Émilion.  You can see the Sauternes appellation and the village of Sauternes is in the far southwest part of the map.

As we made our way down through the rural stretches of the Entre-Deux-Mers, we were startled to see one of these critters dart out in front of us!  

Neither of us has ever seen a live wild boar before.  That guy came tearing out of a vineyard to our left, running in a flat-out, full gallop across the road, and disappeared into the bushes and trees on the other side.  That was one fast pig!

Our appointment at Château Rieussec was for 2:00 p.m. and we planned to have lunch in Sauternes.  Despite being so famous in the world of wine, Sauternes is a very small town.  

One of only a couple of places for lunch is Auberge les Vignes, which translates to inn of the vines.  

It’s just a little place across from the church, en face à l'église. 

It was a chilly, damp day and there was no room at the inn.

We were offered a table on the terrace under an umbrella, which we accepted.  We were partially successful in dodging the raindrops.

Here's the formule for the day.

We both selected a salad of melon jambon, cantaloupe and thinly sliced ham, similar to prosciutto.  You can see a carafe of the house white wine, which was a simple Bordeaux blanc, fresh and light and designed to pair with a simple meal.

Le plat was poulet fermier roti, roast chicken with fries and spinach.  It was just delicious, cooked perfectly, moist and flavorful.

Along with our fruit salad dessert and since we were having lunch in Sauternes the village, we wanted to have a glass of Sauternes the wine.

No surprise, the wine list included lots of choices of Sauternes.  We selected a glass of Château d’Arche 2010.  It was sweet, of course, but the sweetness was balanced by fresh acidity, not at all cloying.  It had those wonderful Sauternes aromas of citrus and tropical fruit notes and the palate was clean, smooth, and refreshing with spice, grapefruit, sort of a lemon candy quality, and a perfectly ripe white peach.

Amazingly and right here in a hometown café, Château d’Yquem 1975 was listed for a cool €1,560, about $2,175 per bottle.

Sauternes is a wine we drink pretty much on special occasions and usually when we’re hosting guests.  It is a dessert wine and can stand on its own as dessert or can be paired with fruit or cheeses, particularly strong cheeses like a Roquefort.  It is a wine that rewards aging.  The structure and balance of acidity, sweetness, and moderate alcohol levels allow it to age gracefully, perhaps more reliably than many wines.  

Below is a screenshot from our wine collection inventory.

Mary and I buy birth year wines for all the grandchildren with a plan to lay them down in our collection under temperature and humidity-controlled storage conditions, then celebrate with them sometime after they turn age 21.  I think Sauternes is a great choice for such a wine.  We even managed to procure one recently from Lisa’s birth year.

Château Rieussec is our favorite Sauternes producer.  It is reliably excellent, not too hard to find, and the price point is not out of reach for a special occasion wine.

Here’s a little background on Sauternes.  There are five communes in the appellation.  They are Sauternes, Fargues, Barsac, Preignac, and Bommes.  Like the Medoc producers, it is grouped in the 1855 classification into growths or crus.  There are three of these.  The top level is Premier Cru Supérieur, Superior First Growth.  There is one and only one producer in this category, which is Château d’Yquem.

The next category is Premier Crus Classé, First Growths.  There are 11 producers in this group, including Château Rieussec, as you can see in this label photo. The Deuxièmes Crus Classé, Second Growths, include 12 more producers.  All the others, numbering more than 250, can include Sauternes on their labels but cannot claim classified growth status.

There is a small tributary of La Garonne in the Sauternes area called Le Ciron.  Mists form between the two rivers on autumn evenings that settle in the vineyards overnight.  A fungus called Botrytis cinerea, termed “noble rot” in the wine world, attacks the grapes, reducing their water content.  The sugar, acidity, and flavor compounds are concentrated into a rich nectar as a result.  The grapes are then picked, berry by berry in numerous passes through the vineyard, called tries (pronounced “trees”) as they reach the desired degree of dehydration.  This photo illustrates Botrytis-infected grapes.

Camille, our delightful guide, took us first to the vineyard on a chilly, drizzly afternoon.  

She showed us how the vines are pruned in winter for the desired number of new shoots during the growing season.  The property totals 93 hectares, about 230 acres.

Here, you can see what Camille calls the “babies.”

Just on the other side of the Château Rieussec vineyards is the adjoining property of Château d’Yquem.

Like many estates in Bordeaux, roses grow at the end of the vineyard rows.

Camille walked us through the technical production area.  Here is the destemmer.

These stainless steel fermentation vats are interesting as they are actually two vats, one on top of the other.

Here is the barrel aging room, where the wines are stored for 18-26 months.  This is the entire production of Château Rieussec for one year, about 72,000 bottles or 6,000 cases for the entire world market.  It is their best wine.  In poor vintages, they may not bottle it at all, such as in 2012.  They make a lesser wine, called a “second label”, which has higher production.

Sauternes is mostly comprised of Semillon, more than 90% in the case of Château Rieussec, along with a little Sauvignon Blanc and Muscadelle.  Here’s Camille, opening the 2011.

Look how pretty it is, golden and rich.  The first impression that comes to me is flowers, especially honeysuckle or gardenia.  There’s also a distinct grapefruit citrus and apricot quality.  The flavor profile is powerfully intense with both fresh and dried fruit flavors, peach, apricot, orange and grapefruit citrus, along with a little nutmeg or allspice.  I’ve often heard it described as similar in some ways to the flavor of crème brulée.  Overlaying it all is excellent balancing acidity and energy.  It was so delicious we just stood there for a while and sipped slowly.

Heading back to the gite we stopped to photograph this building in the town of Le Plan sur Garonne.  Nowadays it is the maire, the mayor’s office, and a community center.  

In a previous life, it was the school.  Carved over the windows on one is Ecole de Garçons, school for boys.  

On the other end is Ecole de Filles.  Mary says she thinks it’s a good idea.

A little farther along is Sauveterre de Guyenne, an old bastide town. 

The ancient gates to the town are remaining.

We picked up charcuterie, cheese, and fruit for a dinner snack back at the gite and enjoyed it with this Burgundy that was gifted to us by Marie and Yves as we left Magny-les-Villers.

That’s our post for today.  We hope you enjoyed it.  Thanks so much for reading us.  We have two more days in Bordeaux before heading home, so we have more to share.  Keep checking back at Cépage et Cuisine as we continue our wine, food, and cultural vacation in Bordeaux.  In the meantime,

Cheers!

Mary♥Brian