Once at Lutece I had the 67 from 375, 750 & 3L. Amazing night.
Yes.
One other point. I have had the aforementioned 47 Huet. The real reference point is not 01 Yquem but the 47 Yquem, which I have also had, and while I love the Huet, 47 Yquem blows it off the table, at least based on one side-by-side comparison.
As to 01 Yquem vs. 47 Huet - the latter is what it is - and great - but the 01 Yquem has such long life and so many stages of evolution ahead of it that equal or will exceed the 47 Huet that I would bet on Yquem every time.
I’m having the 1953 in a few weeks, I’ll let you know. I have also had numerous other vintages, and my answer is yes. But I am not a fan of the vaunted 2001.
For the pedants, it is Chateau d’Yquem, Ch. d’Yquem, or simply Yquem. Never just d’Yquem, which is like saying ‘of Yquem’.
What he said. Different wines to be sure, but there are old Huets, German BAs and TBAs, Alsatian SGNs and other old stickies out there capable of giving far greater pleasure than Yquem. However, that is not the question Mike posed, and I have all of the above and the 2001 Yquem in my cellar, so I need not take sides. If you prefer the Yquem style to all others, by all means drink it, but that in no way makes it consistently the best option. Doisy-Daene Extravagance can often match or beat it in quality and enjoyment (but not at a much lower price). Although there are few vintages of it, Coutet Cuvee Madame is in the same league, if not better. Climens can also be as good or better in SOME vintages. Because of a heavier hand with new oak, Yquem can be outright undrinkable young, although it has no equal for the long haul. And the 2001 Suduiraut and even the 2001 Rieussec surely give the great 2001 Yquem runs for its money, even if Yquem figures to be the long-term winner. Finally, lesser vintages of Yquem may have a hard time justifying the price tag, but hat would be equally true of most first-growth Bordeaux and grand cru Burgundy. All of that said, the centuries-long Yquem track record is unequalled in Sauternes and Barsac, but I think that it is flatly wrong to answer the question posed with an unequivocal “yes” unless Yquem and nothing else suits your palate…Keith…
Yquem has no equal in that the other sweet white wines mentioned by Bill are from far away, different grape varieties, and not comparable.
The proof of the pudding… ask people what the finest sweet white wine in the world is.
I rest my case.
Best regards,
Alex R.
Alex, with all due respect, that is nothing but empty rhetoric. You are probably right, but only because Yquem is the best-KNOWN and one of the most widely-consumed sweet wines, rather than because it is invariably the best. I am not knocking the quality or the reputation (as I said above, I own and drink Yquem), but I am saying that “finest sweet white wine in the world” is sheer foolishness, and for the very reasons that you cited above…different grape varieties, different places (many with legitimate terroir), and moreover, even the variation of quality of all such wines from vintage to vintage. There are German TBAs and Eisweins that can blow a given Yquem off of the table in a side-by-side comparison. Semillon and Sauvignon Blanc are not even among the world’s great grapes, although they do reach their best expressions in Sauternes, Barsac and a couple of expensive white Bordeaux. The greatness lies in what Chateau d’Yquem has done with those grapes for so long. That is indisputable. But it does not mean that Yquem cannot be qualitatively compared to the world’s other great sweet wines and sometimes found wanting. If you gave me the choice between as much free Yquem of all ages as I wanted and a balanced cellar of the world’s greatest sweet wines, including Yquem (with no possibility of resale, to quiet the cynics among us), I would take the latter in a heartbeat. I have had legendary and mediocre bottles of Yquem. I can agree with Keith that it is always identifiable as Yquem; it is just not always great, any more than any other wine. There are bottles of DRC that suck, eh? And countless vintages of Bordeaux and Burgundy in general that suck? Why would Yquem be exempt from the laws of nature? It is surely not because Yquem is only made in optimal years…
All these postings about Sauternes are the blame that now is ready for consumption:
Lafaurie-Peyraquey 2001 ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
Very special Sauternes, and very recognizable as wel.
Put 10 Sauternes in a row, and if you had it before, its no problem to pick it out.
Don´t forget that Austrian sweet-wine maker Alois Kracher (died in 2007, now his son Gerhard K. in charge) has won comparisons with Ch.d´Yquem many times - first (I think) with his Grande Cuvée 1991 against an Yquem (I think the 1988? - one might correct me).
He was also winemaker of the years several times …
Although his wines are/were certainly different from a Sauternes, they are on the same level.
Old vintages are certainly not cheap, but recent bottlings sell for around 35 € the half bottle here.
Maybe I’ve had the wrong ones (I’ve certainly not had many), but the Kracher that I’ve tried has been thick and concentrated and just a completely different style (I’m tempted to say unbalanced, but that’s not exactly true. Tiring is a good word… I couldn’t drink much of it). I’ve tried it with an 01 Suduiraut, and there’s just no comparison… the Suduiraut was head and shoulders above the Kracher.
Exactly. While Yquem might be to Jim Coley’s palate, I’ve found that I consistently prefer dessert-styled Riesling, Loire Chenin Blanc, and Tokaj over Sauternes.
As for that '47 Yquem, that’ll run about 4x to 5x more expensive than '47 Huet, so I most certainly hope for his palate it blows away any other dessert wine. The '01 may be spectacular in 50 years, but there are many wines that absolutely compete with it in its youth… and we’ll all most likely be dead in 50 years, so it’s kind of moot.
Does the AFWE crowd even like d"Yquem or any sauterne for that matter. Isn’t that the style of wine by definition they would find distasteful, or actually having to much taste? So for those posters, the answer to the question would always be no, I would suppose. It would be like asking a vegan which cut of steak they prefer!
The “they” you are referring to here is a straw man created by Robert Parker, not any actual person.
I wasn’t even thinking about Tokaji. Now, for the sake of being argumentative (my specialty), I will make the Yquem-lover’s argument and say that Tokaji, along with some other sweet wines, do not stack up with Yquem over the long haul. Many great ones simply do not have the stuffing to make it beyond 50 years. And Yquem does have great consistency, which most Sauternes and Barsacs do not, due to the vagaries of botrytis and the Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon grapes. (In fact, you might argue that Yquem has no local competition because of the inherent weaknesses of the grapes and process involved.)
HOWEVER, the best Tokaji that I ever tasted was certainly the equal of the best Yquem that I ever tasted, and more complex and interesting. I have TBAs and Eisweins in my cellar that I still need to wait on, but I have no doubt that some of them would make most people spit out Yquem head-to-head. And then there is this: Yquem is a long-ager. The interest of overwhelming number of members of today’s collector community dates from, say, the first issue of the Baltimore-Washington Wine Advocate. Go back further, and you find only a large handful or two of serious, wealthy American collectors (maybe peaking in the early 20th century with the robber barons), with fewer every decade all the way back to Thomas Jefferson. Add in no reefer units and shoddy overseas transportation of wine until very recently. Factor in that Europeans thought that the stuff was for drinking, not stockpiling for eternity and a year in the hope of selling it someday. You end up with not a lot of wine and much of it compromised by time and/or provenance. Under those circumstances, is it not so that there is a good deal of novelty and one-upsmanship associated with old Yquem that does not haunt other stickies in the same way? (And again, I say this having drunk Yquem back into the 1940s and with the 1967 and 1975 still left in my cellar.) I am with those who have stockpiled 2001 Yquem and will be around to enjoy it 50 years from now, but me, I bought half-bottles, and not so many of those!
Keith;
The AFWE crowd does in fact exist. There is even a thread here asking that crowd which wines they should try to convert them to AFWE. That thread has plenty of responses, by a host of AFWEers. To suggest they don’t exist is silly. To suggest that those preferences won’t affect responses to this thread is likewise. there are threads here from people, by their comments, that obviously don’t like sauternes. That’s fine, so the price of any sauterne is to high, so why comment? You ask steak lovers which cut they think is best, not the universe of food consumers which also consists of vegans.
The Krachers - then Alois, now Gerhard - make some 12 to 15 different cuvées each year, from different varieties, different sweetness and acidity due to vintage, and different styles (Nouvelle Vague is fermented in wood, Zwischen den Seen in INOX).
So if you find one thick, tiring and unbalanced (which might refer to one or another), it cannot be true for others …
Yes, the style is different from Sauternes, but not always THAT far away … many have been already fooled in blind tastings, worldwide - and yours truly included.
BTW: I had Yquem 1988 recently blind - an excellent wine, but somehow I wasn´t really enthusiastic …
acidentally I had a Kracher the day before, and from memory that had impressed me more … so I was a bit puzzled: “THIS is 88 Yquem? Well, I had it before, but shouldn´t it be more impressive?”
I though it was another Sauternes, maybe Rieussec …
People are now comparing apples with pears
Have tasted TBA, Tokai, Kracher, and Straw/Noble mens but that is no Sauternes!
p.s. there is only one glass i.m.h.o. for these kind of wines: Riedel designed by Harry Rodenstock
Uh, you’ve kind of missed my point. If you want to point to a “crowd” and call them the AFWE, go ahead, but none of those people have the preferences you’ve ascribed to them.
Because the thread wasn’t “what is your favorite Sauternes”, but rather asked whether Yqeum was worth the tariff. Apparently, in the world according to Gordon, we’re only supposed to post if the answer is yes or the alternative is another Sauternes or Barsac?
As far as tastes go, Yqeum is great wine, there’s no question of that, but not worth the stratospheric tariff relative to other options. As for Sauternes as a class, I’m generally underwhelmed, and feel the region has benefitted overmuch from its association with Yquem and Bordeaux. Your mileage may vary.
I’ve had '47 Huet from a pristine bottle, and there’s a good chance I will have it again in the not too distant future. A famous vintage and an ultimate expression of the Chenin Blanc grape, but to me no match for a great vintage Yquem. Tokay is interesting, yes, but again to me somewhat more cloying in style. BAs, TBAs, Icewines, SGNs can all be great–I’ve had my share–and they all deserve championing, and it’s certainly fair to compare them with great Sauternes.
So in the end, it’s all about personal taste, and for me it’s Sauternes by a nose in the few instances I use sweet wines. And Yquem reigns supreme, (even if I have I more underlings in my cellar).