Sweet Bordeaux Prices

If you set aside d’Yquem and specialities like the Cuvée Madame, Sauternes and Barsac have always been undervalued given quality and the general market. I have assumed this is because unless you start a dinner with foie gras and bring back the wine for dessert it is hard to drink a whole bottle. But recently I am seeing new lows on lists — Suduiraut in the fantastic ‘01 vintage for $75, and the very good ‘05 at $55. Any thoughts on this? Given the cost today of making wine at the top level how are these estates surviving?

It’s an interesting question. There just seems to be some pretty low limit on the amount of interest in sweet wines. Other than a very few devotees of the category on here like AAgrawal, even most of us hardcore wine geek types seem to open something like two bottles a year of sweet wines.

Plus, there’s little incentive to collect them, since old vintages of Sauternes and Port are just sitting on the retail shelves at reasonable prices for if you want to open one at some point. What’s the point of buying recent releases of Sauternes and Port and paying to store them for decades?

That could always change. People weren’t bidding up and hoarding Cornas a decade or two ago, and now here we are.

Buy the '01 Suduiraut at that price. That is the lowest I’ve seen, and the wine is exceptional. I’m not generally a huge Suduiraut fan and have been burned by some vintages in the 80s from them, but the '01 is flawless.

I can understand the strategy to just buy sauternes as needed. But I will say that sauternes may be less robust than commonly believed. The color variation that I see at auction, and the very noticeable difference in lighter and darker bottles of the same wine (even if the darker bottle isn’t flawed) has made me want to cellar at least some sauternes. But I probably cellar too much and have trimmed my purchases recently to make room for other wines.

I find most people like sauternes when they try them. I open about 30-50 bottles per year (halves and full bottles) of sauternes.

Damn, 30-50 bottles. That’s a lot of sugar! The 01 Suduiraut is definitely far better than their 80s releases, which almost always taste tired. Much prefer 80s Rieussec, but even a half bottle takes a group effort to finish. I buy Sauternes maybe once a year if I see a deal on aged goodies.

Nowadays, a Kabinett is sweet enough for me. Haha

I think there is also the misconception that they can’t pair with a lot of foods. I’ve had them with foie gras, oysters, serrano ham, lobster bisque, various cheeses, spicy food (asian dishes with ginger and scallions), spiced and salted nuts, duck magret in ginger broth (if I recall correctly), etc. They were all good pairings.

I’ll admit I also don’t drink them that often especially since my better half can’t stand them. But in a restaurant, I will often look at the “by the glass” offering and try them with different foods to see if I’m missing out on something new and delicious. Which I guess also speaks to the fact that a 750ml is tough to go through in a single meal… but they keep well on day 2+ so there’s that!

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I wonder about this a lot. I remember when I was first getting into wine ~2008, I considered buying a case of 2003 La Tour Blanche for $45/btl to stash away. I decided against it, and am glad I did, because I can the same wine for barely more than that now.

The 2001s mostly seem to be an exception to this - even other excellent (if not as singularly outstanding) vintages of the last 25 years seem to command only half the amount of the 2001s.

~3 per month (mostly half bottles), with usually a sauternes tasting about once a year where I open 4-6 bottles together. Doesn’t seem like so much.

It’s a weird phenomenon where a lot of us admire and enjoy them but so rarely actually want to buy or open one. Obviously that doesn’t apply to Ashish, but it seems to for 99% of the rest of us.

I served a 99 d’Yquem at the end of a tasting full of serious heavy hitters a week ago (89 Palmer, 01 Sloan, 02 Shafer HSS, two 97 Diamond Creeks, others), and several thought it was the wine of the night. I still have some in my fridge. It’s my favorite d’Yquem I’ve had to date, somehow the sweetness is into the right balance with the secondary flavors in that bottle at this age, at least for my tastes.

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I think this was generally true (that you could wait) even for the 2001s, unless you bought EP. Prices went up a lot by release and in many cases there have been better deals since then. For example WS low on 2001 Yquem is around $600 and I believe it was already in that neighborhood when it arrived in the US. Similar with Rieussec. I remember having a tasting near its release and it was selling for $125. It’s just over that now.

Yes, that’s true. Just another example, the '01 Suduiraut at $75 quoted in this post is cheaper than my 750s bought 5+ years ago. I kind of wanted more, but then I thought better of it because it may still be the same price in another 5-10 years. (But just to be clear: If you don’t own any, you should buy some '01 Suduiraut.)

The last Sauternes or Barsac I bought were from the 2016 vintage. What have been your favorite vintages of these wines in the last decade or so. My favorite two wines in this period have been 2011 d’Yquem and 2014 Climens.

Yeah, I’m sure you’re right. But in that case the initial pricing (before I could legally buy wine ^_^) was out of my range and that has persisted. I haven’t seen 2001 Suduiraut anywhere near $75, but I will keep looking!

Many folks buy them, but then never drink them; perhaps people are finally getting wise to the situation, and are pumping the brakes on purchases.

The point above about cellaring to insure proper storage is really the only reason to buy it on release. I do have a few in the cellar. Maybe it was a waste to pay the storage fees all of these years.

I recently bought a 750 ml of ‘88 Climens for under $100 but only because the color was very light compared to many I’ve seen and the fill was in the neck. Although I like them with high acid and/or the right foods, I don’t open Sauternes often, making it easy to cherry pick older bottles like this Climens patiently.

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Craig G wrote:
Similar with Rieussec. I remember having a tasting near its release and it was selling for $125. It’s just over that now.

I remember the Danville Costco had the 2001 Rieussec for $44.99. Bought a few for myself and my neighbor. They were hidden under the bin, because the wine buyer knew they were underpriced relative to the market. Outside of that, I agree with the sentiments about how little they appreciate in value from the release price.

Howard Cooper wrote:
What have been your favorite vintages of these wines in the last decade or so.

2015 D’Yquem and 2014 Climens for me, Howard. I have not tried the 2011 D’Yquem.

Ed

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Consumers have generally shifted away from sweet wines, even if US ones will tolerate more RS in their ‘dry’ wines than what might have been accepted previously.

I agree that they are undervalued - in the context of their labor intensity etc. - but the producers are making less of the stuff and shifting to much easier to deal with, and more profitable blancs. At some point more vintners will throw in the towel, make less wine at much higher prices, and simply say ‘Sauternes is not for everyone. It’s for those who are willing to pay for the best’

Although I have some preferences among producers, in general if something makes it to the US, my feel is that it will be pretty good, and I find there is less perceived quality range in dessert wines. By that I mean: in dry reds we can discern between awful and awesome, and experience the full range in the normal course of consumption over a few years. Among sweet wines: I basically find it ranges from good to great, with compression in the extremes. And its probably more tolerant of storage problems and taint than dry reds, at least for me. Maybe every now and then an 01 Rieussec, Climens, or Suduiraut blows that rule of thumb up. But even something like an 04 Nairac, a year not held in high regard, was really good. So even though I’m normally a vintage sensitive purchaser of wine, this is one area where I think it can be ok to be less slavish to that.

I have bought Sauternes EP (mainly in 2001) as well as oddball bottles in other random years but I don’t think it makes any sense. My 375ml bottling orders turned out to be only ‘requests’ which defeated some of the utility of ordering early, and finding cases of 750mls is not hard later (vs halves). And as long as the pent up supply of undrunk stickies periodically finds it way into secondary markets, I don’t see prices firming up. Until the producers find a way to really boost true consumption of the wine - not just boosting prices or stuffing sales channels - I think they will always have the issue of soft secondary pricing which holds back current releases. But that’s their problem, not really mine.

Ignoring the luxury examples, I find Coutet to be my personal favorite.

I do love Sauternes. We drink it rarely but I do drink on special occasions. I remember buying a case of ‘83 Rieussec for like $15 a bottle. One of my favorites. And I do love the 2001 Suduiraut but I’m surprised people disparaged their wines from the ‘80s. I remember being at the chateau and having a older lady pipette us a glass of the ‘82 which was excellent, not normally a good year for Sauternes. And I’ll always love the Sauternes that turned me on to the sweet nectar, though not considered a top wine, a ‘76 de Malle. I even traded a piano for a bunch of Sauternes!

Tonight I went out to my first restaurant that wasn’t socially distanced/outside in a year. I tried to order a Pedro Ximénez but they didn’t have it. I went home and asked if I should open a dessert wine and was told no. It’s so rare that I can open one. I feel that they also suffer due to these low carb times.

it is sometimes a bit weird to see these wines offered at retail for nearly the same price I paid 20 years ago, but then I remind myself why I cellar. It’s more often not about price, but knowing the storage conditions, so I am happy with all my old, Sauternes, I never intended to sell them anyway (now I just need to find more opportunity to open them!)

I love Sauternes.
That said I purchased lots of 2001 and 2003 but nothing since.
So glad I made those purchases. I recently took some out of storage. The color is darkening golden. The fill is virtually 100%.
Based on the visuals the wines will be amazing!

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