SWEET BORDEAUX: looking beyond the obvious

It’s not all about Sauternes, you know – there are other, lesser-known Bordeaux areas that produce top-notch dessert styles using botrytised grapes. Andy Howard MW explores these outlying and often great-value appellations, and recommends 12 top wines to try

- Andy Howard MW

Bordeaux is rightly famous for the great sweet white wines of Sauternes and Barsac. These stand alongside trockenbeerenauslese from Germany, Hungarian Tokaji, and Tuscany’s vin santo as some of the finest and most delectable wines available.

And yet making sweet white wine is not for the faint-hearted. Minimal yields and uncertainty about the prospects for viability every year combined with high costs of production. Add to the equation the weak demand for sweet wines, and it’s a wonder that any is produced at all.

The most famous sweet wines of Bordeaux are generally referred to as ‘Sauternes’, although five distinct communes are permitted to use this name, including Barsac, Bommes, Fargues, and Preignac, as well as Sauternes itself. Appellation rules dictate a minimum planting density of 6,500 vines per hectare, together with a maximum yield of 25hl/ha. Harvesting by hand is mandatory, with successive passes through the vineyard (tries in French) required to pick the best grapes. Soils here are diverse, with clay, gravel, and sand, with a higher limestone presence in Barsac. What makes the area unique is the presence of mists caused by the confluence of the warm Garonne and the colder Ciron rivers. In the autumn, these conditions encourage the development of ‘noble rot’ – Botrytis cinerea. The effect of noble rot is to dry out and concentrate grapes (particularly the thin-skinned Semillon) and promote the flavors found in botrytized grapes: marmalade, fruit zest, mushroom, and honey.