This winery visit was the most casual and pleasurable by far. It was a last minute idea that I had because we had some extra time before we had to hit the road, so I just put in a call to the winery and they said, sure. I made the appointment with a young lady named Caroline, who was very friendly on the phone.
I asked for Caroline and then she arrived from the office area seconds later.
Caroline asked the gentlemen if we could take over their place by the fire, and they kindly went into the other room. Then she began to give us a brief background on the winery, showed us a map of their vineyards, and explained their harvest process. Her English was quite good and you could tell that she was passionate about her job.
The harvest is completely different than normal grape harvest for they have to wait for the grapes to attacked by the Botritis mold before the grapes are picked. This requires careful attention in the vineyard, and as soon as they grapes are ready they must be picked immediately. The grape clusters are then sorted by hand in the vineyard because otherwise they risk to loose too much juice. Since the grapes are a late harvest, much of the precious juice has already been dried up.
The ratio of grapes to wine is for every 100 feet of grapes you get about a bottle of juice. With the late harvest for the same quantity you get a glass.
The winery employs about 35 people full time and during harvest about 100 which starts in late September.
The employees for the harvest are almost all locals for they need to be available on an on-call basis for the duration of the harvest which can last for up to 2 months.
Their vineyards consist of about 100 hectares of Sauvignon Blanc and Semillion grapes.
Their Sauternes are different than others because they use a higher percentage of Sauvignon Blanc, about 65%.
She asked us if we would like to taste the wine, and then asked which vintages? They had vintages dating back to 1998. I took a quick look at my vintage chart and selected to taste 2007, then Caroline said her favorite was 2008, even though it didn't get such great reviews.
The 2007 had all the qualities you want in a Sauternes, wet paint & lots of rich honey on the nose, with balanced acidity and a clean, long finish. I gave this wine a 2 star rating.
The 2008 was nice but seemed like it may not have the aging potential it should.
Then we tasted the 2003, which earned my 3 star rating. It was absolutely superb, we were wishing we had some Roquefort cheese to go with it!
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The Sauternes from Chateau Guiraud are appealing to me because they have a rich but fluid consistency, not syrupy or thick like other late harvest wines. Perfectly sweet, nothing more nothing less.
What was so nice about this winery visit was that they were casual and welcoming, it was a completely different experience than in the rest of Bordeaux. Thank you Caroline and Chateau Guiraud.
