SAUTERNES & BARSAC
The beneficial mold, Botrytis cinerea (the “noble rot”; in French, “pourriture noble”), affecting grapes in the Sauternes region of Bordeaux, France. Photo from Edwin on flickr.
During the autumns in lucky years in Sauternes and Barsac, sunny, dry days combine with humid nights and mornings—born of the confluence of the very cold river, the Ciron, as it flows northeast into the warmer and larger river, the Garonne—and cause a unique fungus, botrytis cinerea [boh-TRY-tihs sihn-AIR-ee-uh], to spread among the vines, especially those bearing the grape Sémillon.
In French, botrytis is nicknamed la pourriture noble, “the noble rot,” for it is a beneficial mold. Although it shrivels and kills grapes, it also concentrates their sugar and flavor, leaves acidity high, and prevents the incursion of oxygen.
The wines made from such grapes are intensely sweet, elegant, and long-lived. (Under damper, less accommodating conditions, botrytis morphs into “grey rot,” a spoiling fungus.)
Botrytis also synthesizes more than 20 aroma compounds, one of which has the tempting scent of slightly caramelized honey—a telltale aroma in the sweet wines of Barsac and Sauternes.
It is a further blessing that Sémillon grapes have so little native flavor and aroma because botrytis effectively concentrates and complexes what is there; heightens Sémillon’s low acidity; and produces glycerol, which contributes to the sexy viscosity of wines hit with botrytis.
But infection by botrytis is capricious and spotty. Plus, it affects vines grape by grape, so that, even within bunches, some grapes shrivel and others do not. (See photo above.)
As a consequence, the winemaking estates of Sauternes and Barsac must send forth their grape pickers several times during a harvest season—a lengthy and stressful time that may begin as early as mid-September and continue into November. These pickers select only those grapes infected with the noble mold.
Because hail, rain, and frosts also descend on the vineyards of Bordeaux in October and November, excellent harvests in Sauternes and Barsac are rarer than in Bordeaux’s other areas with their shorter windows of harvesting time.
The number of pickings measures the expense of each bottle of Sauternes. Château d’Yquem, perhaps the greatest sweet wine made on earth, may disperse pickers up to ten times (the château does whatever it takes).
A saying in the area goes that one vine produces one bottle of Sauternes. At Yquem, the saying is amended: “One vine makes merely one glass of Yquem.”
The embossment on the capsule of a bottle of Château d’Yquem 2003, Sauternes, Bordeaux, France.