Château d'Yquem

A bottle of Château d'Yquem 1973

Château d'Yquem is a Premier Cru Supérieur (Fr: "Great First Growth" or "Great First Vintage") wine from the Sauternes region in the southern part of the Bordeaux vineyards known as Graves.

In the Bordeaux Wine Official Classification of 1855, Château d'Yquem was the only Sauternes given this rating, indicating its perceived superiority and higher prices over all other wines of its type. Wines from Château d'Yquem are characterised by their complexity, concentration and sweetness. A relatively high acidity helps to balance the sweetness. Another characteristic for which Château d'Yquem wines are known are their longevity. In a good year, a bottle will only begin to show its qualities after a decade or two of cellaring and with proper care, will keep for a century or more, gradually adding layers of taste and hitherto undetected fruity overtones.

Since 1959, Château d'Yquem has produced a dry white wine called Ygrec (Fr: the letter "Y"), made from an equal proportion of Sémillon and Sauvignon Blanc. This wine is not produced in every vintage.

History

Château d'Yquem itself is known to have been acquired by Jacques de Sauvage in December of 1593. De Sauvage acquired the property by exchanging other lands that he then owned for what was then referred to as the 'House of Yquem.' It was acquired from the French monarchy. The site has been home to a vineyard since at least 1711 when the estate became fully owned by Léon de Sauvage d'Yquem. In 1785 it passed to the Lur-Saluces family when Françoise-Joséphine de Sauvage d'Yquem married Count Louis-Amédée de Lur-Saluces, the godson of Louis XV and Lady Victoire de France. Monsieur Lur-Saluces died three later, and his wife henceforth focused her energy on sustaining and improving the estate; indeed, the Château at it is now known is largely due to her work, as well as that of her descendants, who ran the property for over 200 years and whose name remains on the label to this day.

While Envoy to France, Thomas Jefferson visited the château and later wrote, "Sauterne.^sic This is the best white wine of France and the best of it is made by Monsieur de Lur-Saluces." Jefferson ordered 250 bottles of the 1784 vintage for himself, and additional bottles for George Washington. However, at that time the technique of allowing noble rot to infect grapes had not yet been discovered, so the wine Jefferson was drinking was a different sweet wine. Remarkably, the size of Château d'Yquem was, however, the same size in 1788 as it is today.

For most of the 20th century the Château was run by the Marquis Bernard de Lur-Saluces who developed its status until his death in 1968. Since 1996, Château d'Yquem has been owned by the French luxury goods giant LVMH, who bought 51 % of the Château from the family of the Comte Alexandre de Lur-Saluces after a bitter family feud, although he was kept as the manager of the estate. Rejecting purchase of the vineyard were AXA (the French insurance giant), Coca-Cola, Nestle, Philip Morris, RJR Nabisco, Seagram's and Diageo. Bitter legal battles continued following the sale and in May 17, 2004, the Count retired and was replaced by the current managing director of Château Cheval Blanc, Pierre Lurton. The Count was known for being particularly dedicated towards maintaining quality, going so far as to reject an entire batch of the wine if he did not like the results of a randomised testing.

In 2006 a 135-year "vertical" (containing every vintage from 1860 to 2003) was sold at auction in London for $1.5 million, one of the highest prices ever paid for a single lot of wine. Also that year, Dior and Château d'Yquem teamed up together to create a unique skin care product made from the sap of the Yquem vines.

Production

A half bottle of Yquem 1999

The vineyard extends to 113 hectares between the villages of Sauternes and Fargues, though only around 100 hectares are in production at any time. The vines consist of around 80% Sémillon and 20% Sauvignon Blanc, though the latter's productivity means that the proportions are more equal in the final wine. Yquem's success stems largely from the site's susceptibility to attack by Botrytis cinerea, the "noble rot".

The harvesting is carefully timed, and at least a half dozen "tris" are undertaken each year to ensure that only the botrytized grapes are selected. The resulting yield is never more than 900 litres per hectare, compared to the usual 2,000 to 3,000 litres in Sauternes. The grapes are pressed three times and transferred to oak barrels for maturation over a period of three and a half years.

On average, only 65,000 bottles are produced each year. In a poor vintage, the entire crop is deemed unworthy of bearing the Château's name; this happened 9 times in the 20th century (1910, 1915, 1930, 1951, 1952, 1964, 1972, 1974, 1992).

A wine with an extremely long life, bottles of 100 years and older may be found in excellent condition if properly kept.

References in literature and cinema

• Fyodor Dostoevsky mentions Château d'Yquem in part II of The Possessed (also known as The Devils or Demons) as the last wine drunk by a young man who commits suicide in a hotel after having squandered 400 roubles given to him by his family to make purchases for his sister's wedding.

• Château d'Yquem is a favorite of Hannibal Lecter. In the novel Hannibal, he tracked down and purchased a bottle of Château d'Yquem that was bottled in the year of Clarice Starling's birth as a 33rd birthday gift for her.

• Château d'Yquem is referenced in Vladimir Nabokov's novel Pnin, as Pnin prepares his heady 'Pnin's Punch' for his home-warming party. The mixture contains chilled Château d'Yquem, grapefruit juice, and maraschino.

• Château d'Yquem is said to be the favourite wine of Old Etonian Denys Finch Hatton (1887-1931), the Kenya-based white hunter, aviator, bon vivant, and lover of novelist Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen).

• Château d'Yquem is the wine used to poison Mikhail Skobelev in Boris Akunin's novel The Death of Achilles.

• There is a mention of Château d'Yquem in Ocean's 13, in a scene when Matt Damon tells a joke with a 1973 Yquem.

• Château d'Yquem is mentioned in Harold Q. Masur's 1949 novel, Suddenly a Corpse.

• Château d'Yquem is the favourite tipple of Darcy Dancer, Gentleman, in works by J. P. Donleavy.

• Humphrey Bogart mentions Château d'Yquem in the film We're No Angels.

Sources

• Echikson, William. Luxury on the Block. Chapter 7 in Echikson, William. Noble rot: A Bordeaux Wine Revolution. NY: W.W.Norton, 2004.
• Echikson, William. Battle Royal. Chapter 11 in Echikson, William. Noble rot: A Bordeaux Wine Revolution. NY: W.W.Norton, 2004.

Footnotes

External links

• Château d'Yquem official site Template:Fr icon Template:En icon
• .wav soundbite for pronunciation