Sauternes

Styles

Principal grape varieties

Terroir

• The appellation extends across five communes in the Gironde département, approximately forty kilometres south-east of Bordeaux, on the left bank of the Garonne.
• The soils are varied — gravelly, clayey, siliceous, and calcareous — and rest on a subsoil that is most often clayey, but also gravelly or calcareous, and sometimes formed of alios cemented by iron, aluminium, and manganese hydroxides.
• The Tertiary-era calcareous subsoil outcrops most prominently at Barsac, where the limestone rich in Asteria and Archiacina fossils, known locally as calcaire de Saint-Macaire, dates from the Stampian.
• The mild, wet winters and moderately warm summers of the Bordeaux oceanic climate allow a slow ripening that is particularly well suited to white varieties.
• The hills of the soil terraces, oriented east-south-east along the axis of the Garonne valley, promote good natural ventilation of the vineyards, while at the confluence of the Ciron and the Garonne condensation phenomena bring abundant humidity; this alternation of nocturnal moisture and daytime ventilation is responsible for the development of Botrytis cinerea on the grapes, giving rise to noble rot.

• The 1855 Bordeaux wine classification, carried out by the Place de Bordeaux brokers for the Exposition Universelle at the initiative of Napoléon III, distinguished 27 classified growths — the only white wines from the Gironde to be included in that classification.
• Sémillon, which originates from the Sauternais according to Georges Cazeaux-Cazalet, came to dominate the local plantings thanks to its good resistance to downy mildew and powdery mildew at a time when the vineyards faced severe threats at the end of the nineteenth century.
• The thick-skinned berries of Sémillon lend themselves particularly well to botrytisation and to the production of great sweet wines.
• As early as 1741, the Intendant of Guyenne recorded that the harvests were carried out only when the grapes were almost rotten, and in several passes in order to give them greater sweetness.

• The characteristics of Sauternes wines result essentially from the botrytisation of the grapes, the fungus triggering biochemical transformations that give rise to specific aromatic and flavour compounds.
• When young they are golden in colour with perfumes of flowers and fruit; as they age their colour deepens to amber and they develop a 'roasted' bouquet, with toasted aromas, candied fruit, citrus, and honey.
• These are wines of great richness and unctuousness on the palate, with a very long ageing potential that can span several decades, yet they are excellent from the moment of bottling, as all great wines are.

• The particular mesoclimatic conditions of the region are responsible for the development of Botrytis cinerea, the noble rot that confers their distinctive character on the wines of the Sauternais.

Facts drawn from the specification's terroir-link section by automatic interpretation — see the source.

All appellations in France

Sources

• Product specification (BO Agri, PDF), JORF 29 juillet 2016
• Official INAO text (show_texte)
• INAO product entry
• Official trade body site — Syndicat Viticole de Sauternes & Barsac