{"id":876,"date":"2018-02-27T22:16:37","date_gmt":"2018-02-27T22:16:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=876"},"modified":"2018-02-27T22:38:33","modified_gmt":"2018-02-27T22:38:33","slug":"chateau-guiraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=876","title":{"rendered":"Ch\u00e2teau Guiraud"},"content":{"rendered":"

Visiting Sauternes is a revelation and also a bit of a surprise.\u00a0 The greatest of the latter is to see the grapes if you visit near the harvest.\u00a0 In all your other wine tasting voyages, harvest time means plump, glistening grapes hanging pendulously from the vines, just waiting to be picked and vinified.\u00a0 What you get in Sauternes is shriveled brown grapes, formerly green, that you would throw away if you found them in your refrigerator.<\/p>\n

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Sauternes grapes.\u00a0 Photo courtesy of Wikimedia commons.<\/em><\/p>\n

The reason is botrytis, la pourriture noble<\/em>, the Noble Rot.\u00a0 It\u2019s a fungus that infests vineyards in damp weather, especially when the grapes are ripe and give the botrytis something to eat.\u00a0 Much of the liquid is evaporated out of the grapes and what there is is wonderfully sweet and concentrated.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t occur everywhere nor every year, but in a the area in and around the villages of Sauternes and Barsac, it is an almost annual event.\u00a0 As you can see in the photo, not even all the grapes in a cluster are affected, so the ones they want for the world\u2019s most famous dessert wine have to be picked carefully, by hand.\u00a0 It takes a lot of these rotten grapes to make a bottle of wine.<\/p>\n

There are many Sauternes producers, the most famous of which is Ch\u00e2teau d\u2019Yquem.\u00a0 Other notable ones are La Tour Blanche, Suiduirat, Doisy-Da\u00ebne<\/a> and Doisy-V\u00e9drines.\u00a0 We have chosen to highlight Ch\u00e2teau Guiraud because it\u2019s one of the best (Premier Grand Cru Class\u00e9 in 1855) and the only major Sauternes house actually in the village of Sauternes.\u00a0 For the visitor, Ch\u00e2teau Guiraud is a great deal easier to visit than others of the great Ch\u00e2teaux, with no reservation required and tasting hosted in English as well as French.\u00a0 (Oh, and also because we love their wine and keep it in our cellar.)<\/p>\n

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Ch\u00e2teau Guiraud.\u00a0 Photo courtesy of Vinexpo.<\/em><\/p>\n

A tasting a Ch\u00e2teau Guiraud is part of the revelation we referred to at the beginning of this article.\u00a0 You\u2019ll find that there are dry white wines made in the region and their second label, Petit Guiraud, is a pleasant before-dinner wine.\u00a0 Then you get to taste the big guns, the real Sauternes wines.\u00a0 Their basic tasting offers a vertical of three vintages, which again is revelatory.\u00a0 You learn the intricacy and delicacy of this fabulous dessert wine from the people who made it.<\/p>\n

The ch\u00e2teau itself makes for a pleasant visit.\u00a0 You enter via a long roadway lined with plane trees.\u00a0 At the end you find a gracious 18th<\/sup> century mansion, with a stone bordelais<\/em> tower next to it.\u00a0 The tasting room has a grand fireplace and the room, while a bit sparse, is a welcome to a bygone era of French hospitality.\u00a0 If you\u2019re there at the right time of year, don\u2019t forget to see the rotten grapes.<\/p>\n

One oddity of a visit to Sauternes, especially early in the day, is to find yourself sipping dessert before the sun is down or even before lunch.\u00a0 Best advice: get over it.\u00a0 Second best advice: give some thought while you\u2019re sipping to how you might enjoy these wines other<\/em> than as dessert.\u00a0 They certainly accompany cheeses and although they are a bit heavy are well suited to aperitifs.\u00a0 Perhaps the best and most widely know way to drink Sauternes is as an accompaniment to foie gras.<\/p>\n

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Visiting Sauternes is a revelation and also a bit of a surprise.\u00a0 The greatest of the latter is to see the grapes if you visit near the harvest.\u00a0 In all your other wine tasting voyages, harvest time means plump, glistening grapes hanging pendulously from the vines, just waiting to be picked and vinified.\u00a0 What you … Continue reading Ch\u00e2teau Guiraud<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=876"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":894,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876\/revisions\/894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}