Sauternes and Barsac Tasting

The blind tastings during En Primeurs are one of the week's highlights and an important part of the review process. I've done blind tastings before, but never as many as I did that week, and never with as many professionals. The journalists take this process very seriously, and it is a real treat to be able to watch/participate.

The 220 credentialed journalists were split into 5 groups, each group did their Grand Crus tastings at different Chateaux. I was in group 1, so I'll be writing about those locations.



The Sauternes and Barsac tasting was held at Chateau Coutet. There were a total of 25 wines tasted. From each group I am only going to post my notes of the top 5-7 wines. I've already posted links to the full notes of others, most of what I have in my notes would be redundant. The notes are in tasting order, not in order of preference:



Chateau Broustet: This wine had a light yellow color and I got daisies on the nose. Flavors of peach and a real effervescence to the wine.

Chateau Doisy-Daene: The wine had a lovely golden color to it and I got pear and peach on the nose and tastes of berries and raisins on the mouth.

Chateau Filhot: This wine was surprisingly clear with a beautiful color to it. Detected honey on the nose with a taste of peach and apricot. Nice long finish.

Chateau Coutet: The wine had a very nice yellow color to it. It was a complex wine with apricot on the nose. I got a taste of orange and pineapple and a tremendous, lingering finish.

Chateau Guiraud: This wine was golden in color and had great citrus aromas. A very elegant wine with a taste of orange and raisins and a nice long finish.

Note: I want to add that overall, I thought the 2009 vintage of Sauternes and Barsac is excellent. There are a lot of really good wines there and they seemed to have qualities that experts feel make for a vintage that will age very well.