Viticulture and wine making in Bordeaux dates back thousands of years to the Roman times
However, it wasn't until the 1600s that sweet wines became popular within the region
With the arrival of the Dutch in the early 17th century
demands shifted within Bordeaux
Moving away from lighter red wines towards more structured medium bodied Reds as well as sweet white wines
Although Bordeaux today is still dominated by red grape varieties the areas of Sauternes
And Barsac are identified as being prime locations for white wine production and some of the world's greatest sweet wines are produced here
What grape series here? In our region we have three types of grapes
Semillon which is the prominent grape that originated in sit down probably around the 4th century
It brings a lot of nectars a lot of structure to the wine. Then you complement it with the
Sauvignon Blanc, which we consider a contributor of citrus characteristics and the third grape that we have is Muscadelle
It's not prominent. It's very it's it's very thin-skinned grape
So it's very susceptible to disease and you need to have very good clay to have very good Muscadelle
So today most people have mostly Semillon
Complemented with a bitter Sauvignon Blanc and some places have a bit of Muscadelle
These grapes are grown all around the world. However, very few places have the required climatic conditions to produce sweet wines of this style
not to be confused with fortified wines such as sherry or port the sweet wines of Sauterne and Barsac undergo a
Fascinating natural process known as noble rot
Instigated by a fungus called botrytis cinerea noble rot can only occur under highly precise conditions
we are in a specific microclimate that encourages the proliferation of botrytis and
the
Microclimate alternates between these humid mornings and these dry sunny afternoons
that allows the evaporation of water and the concentration of sugar
So more technically botrytis attacks grapes and makes little holes in the skin
And in the afternoon the water is going to evaporate through these holes
and you're going to concentrate your sugar
Basically, we have a lot of Indian summers in this region
so this going back and forth between these misty humid mornings, and these sunny afternoons is a
Prerequisite to controlling the botrytis to evolve into what we call noble rot. So
Botrytis. What flavours is it going to give the wine?
So in addition to helping us concentrate the grape and also produce glycerol, which gives wines texture
Botrytis gives us aromas. It's very hard to explain the characteristics of these aromas
It's very personal some people associate it in a very young wine to some kind of
Grapefruit characteristic the zestiness. And older wines I think it's easier to spot it as a spicy characteristics
Sauternes and Barsac now lead the way for high-end sweet wine production around the world
However, the history of this particular winemaking practice is somewhat contested
There's a lot of different stories that people tell about how we came to make sweet wine
There's the the great legend of a Chateau where the owner went hunting and told everybody
please wait till I get back
And then when he got back there was all this fungus and you know often they had the idea of making sweet wines
there's also the story of
the Dutch that were very present in Bordeaux because they were building the
drainage system up in the Merdoc and they had a love and
A knowledge of botrytis to them German area in Austria, so they brought that knowledge to Bordeaux
and helped us develop
The techniques to turn these botrytis grapes into sweet wines
So it's probably a little bit of both a happy accident
But also the right people at the right place with the knowledge to help us develop
Wine making in the appellation Sauternes in Barsac is often a huge challenge
because of the unique conditions required the noble rot to occur
Not enough moisture and the grapes will dry out before the onset of fungus
Too much moisture and the fungus will turn to gray rot
a negative result that effects any different parts destroying their fruit
Well, everything links back to botrytis and unfortunately but rises an anarchist, so it doesn't attack a bunch of berry all in one go
It's gonna start a little bit here a little bit there
And as a result, when we hand harvest we have to go and look at each bunch and pick the berries that are ready
So in a vineyard, you're going to go through in our in our case
I could say we go through six to eight times
during a period of six to eight weeks. Wow. each person looking at a vine and
Picking the fruit that's reached the right level of concentration. So here you're in a first growth
So we're looking for twenty one - twenty two degrees of potential alcohol. So it's very concentrated fruit
We're picking those berry by berry
We're gonna put these in these little baskets, the baskets goes into a second selection process where someone from our team
Will go through and take anything out. That's not qualitative
And then the fruit goes into the cellar and we're gonna start pressing. That's so meticulous. It's a lot of work
I presume this is gonna impact the yield and then the final cost of the wine because that's a lot of
Work already just for a harvest
So in our region, we're making about one glass of wine per vine
Relatively speaking. If you're taking a red producer of the same quality you're making an entire bottle
Wow, that's a really really good comparison. So one vine will give me one glass. That's correct
It's a little to work for a glass of wine
It's passion its devotion. It's a lot of hard work all year long to ensure that the fruit is healthy at the time of harvest.