1989 | Château d'Yquem

The wine is extremely alcoholic and rich, with a huge nose of smoky, honey-covered coconuts and overripe pineapples and apricots.

Reviews:

• Wine Advocate: Notable for being a very hot Bordeaux vintage, 1989 is also the year that the vines were hit by a violent hailstorm in July, which damaged the western half of the vineyard. Since the berries were still quite small and hard at that stage, the impact was minimized to about 20% crop loss overall. Thereafter, the vines soldiered on to produce a stunningly concentrated crop this year.

• Vinous: The 1989 Yquem is probably the best and most consistent of the triumvirate at the end of the decade. Two bottles tasted at 30 years of age give me no reason to alter that opinion. Limpid gold in color, slightly lighter than the 1988, it has a vivacious bouquet of gorgeous orange blossom, tinned apricot, quince jelly and wild heather, all delivered with impressive clarity. The palate is cohesive, pure and exquisitely balanced, sporting just the right amount of viscosity (less than the 1990). It bursts with tangerine, white peach, saffron and fresh fig, flecks of Seville orange marmalade appearing on the finish. This is Yquem flirting with its very best, and you never know – it could get even better with age.

Producer Information

Château d'Yquem is a property in the Sauternes district of Bordeaux, making what is arguably the world's most famous dessert wine. It was the only Sauternes château rated as Premier Cru Supérieur in the official Classification of 1855, and is priced accordingly. The Yquem estate, owned by the King of England in the Middle Ages, has produced late-harvest wine since at least the late 1500s. The 103 hectare (254 acre) vineyard is situated on the highest hill in Sauternes. The soils here are perfect for the production of sweet wine – a warm, dry topsoil of pebbles and course gravel lies over a clay subsoil that retains generous water reserves, aiding with the development of noble rot, and there are around 60 miles (100km) of drains to prevent waterlogging. At any one time around 12ha (30 acres) of vineyard are either fallow or have young vines not suitable for production.

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