Château d’Yquem, announced the arrival of the new 2019 vintage with a flourish this month, by inviting the great and the good to a series of lunches and dinners across the London. Clearly LVMH had something it wanted to say about its precious acquisition.
A word about the latest vintage of Yquem first. It is far from classic, although with the relentless onslaught of global warming, it may well be considered moderate in 20 years time. Nevertheless, using current parameters, 2019 was a warm summer. Very, very warm. This showed in the wine, which was packed full of sunshine, apricots, marmalade, and crème brûlée. It has a precision that seems incomprehensible from such a warm heat wave of a summer.
Head of wine and cellar master, Sandrine Garbay attributed this to an unprecedented percentage of Sauvignon Blanc in the blend, around 45%, and also, I imagine, the practice of not picking the scorched and baked grapes, but only the botrytised grapes with no ‘passerillage’, kept the brightness and acidity up.
Sandrine Garbay onChateau d’Yquem’s mission to introduce the wine to more people
A beautiful wine that was served from an imperial (or double magnum), with a remarkably diverse array of canapés, that illustrated the other message that the maison was keen to get across – that Yquem isn’t just a dessert wine. Boneless crispy buttermilk chicken wings with Yquem 2019? Hell yeah! If sweet and sour chicken balls work, why can’t this!? Stunning and hard to stop devouring. Little tartlets of mushroom duxelles with a grating of parmesan, a much more classic, food match worked it’s way into the savoury corners bringing out beautiful umami tones in the middle of the wine.
Matthieu Jullien of LVMH, the Chateau’s owners, explained how it was trying to instil a culture of being able to see Yquem in its earliest phase, with the help of a carefully curated bunch of what they are calling “lighthouses”, restaurants and bars that will, when in stock, serve Yquem by the glass, reaching a broader, more City-savvy and presumably younger audience. I have no problem with this idea at all, especially having been astonished by how untiring it was to drink three (sorry) glasses of Yquem before dinner. I fact, I can’t remember an aperitif that was as delicious, well-balanced or as effortlessly affective as this. Just magical.
Onwards to dinner
The wines that we were presented with throughout the dinner were “Y” de Yquem 2017 Bordeaux Sec, the dry Bordeaux white, made from a blend of 60% Sauvignon Blanc, 15% Sauvignon Gris and 25% Semillon. It has been in barrels, 20% new, and 80% second-fill Yquem barrels.
This wine was a true beauty, from a vintage that was a hugely successful white wine vintage slightly further north in the gravels south of Bordeaux, and produced superbly concentrated wines in Sauternes-Barsac with whistle clean botrytis cinerea and razor sharp freshness. This wine has a silky, very fine texture, tipping its hat toward the satin creaminess of the Grand Vin itself. The aroma was full of green melon sorbet, pink grapefruit and wet stones, following onto a smooth luge of citrus fruits and hints of vanilla. Quite brilliant. Then again, you hope you get what you pay for… Here, you do, and it was a complete success with the olivey herb oils, citrus and cured wild trout.
Then the rest of our glasses were filled left to right with three Yquem vintages from the Château cellars, namely 2017, 2007 and 1999.
So, how did the three slightly older wines fare with the food on offer?
Starting with the 2017, this is a stunning wine. Utterly stunning, but revelling its youth, resolutely closed to the world, curled up under its duvet, looking, if anything, a lot younger than the latest release. This is the one and only moment in the evening, when I remembered that this wine is one of the latest great vintages from a list almost two centuries long, and one of the reasons why it has become so famous, and let’s not forget expensive, is because it often shows near immortality, allowing the wine to be traded many times on the secondary market with almost complete safety.
Not all vintages will be as suitable to this new culture of getting an early glimpse at the wine as the 2019. I imagine drinking the 2013 on release would have been terrifying, so tight, concentrated and intense, that it would have been like holding a grenade in the mouth. Still, this wine shared all the talents of its dry sibling, with pure botrytis, that lent more towards caramelised meyer lemons than apricot. I think that this needs a decade to get out what you paid for it.
However the other two vintages chosen were wines of real complexity, harmony and tension, and both matched our food unbelievably well. In the end, I would have fallen on the side of drinking the 2007 with pan-fried cod and curried mussels, and the 1999 with my sticky-toffee pudding OR rhubarb cheese cake
The 2007 was heaving with botrytis. For those who remember, it wasn’t the most successful red wine vintage by any stretch of the imagination, but provided incredible botrytis, allied with lots of natural acidity. This wine had hints of gingerbread and Dundee marmalade, with an almost cocoa butter dusted palate of confit pear and all spice. Worked a dream with the curry, like an exquisite mango chutney.
The 1999 was fascinating. The vintage started with very high hopes, only to have dreams dashed by late downpours, and in some areas of Bordeaux, catastrophic hail. The resultant wine is a masterclass in terroir over winemaking, with the Yquem DNA running all the way through it, with a gorgeous gold and brass patina and wonderful complex spicy notes of cinnamon and beurre noisette and clotted cream butter toffee.
Defined, complex and fully ready to drink, although, with Yquem, even a vintage as blighted as this still has a decade or two in it I reckon, but 22 years? Yep that’ll do.
Cheers!
