2005 Chateau d'Yquem Sauternes (375 mL) is sold out.

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Wine Bottle
  • 97 pts Wine Advocate
    97 pts RPWA
  • 97 pts Wine Spectator
    97 pts WS
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2005 Chateau d'Yquem Sauternes (375 mL) Half-Bottle

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  • Curated by unrivaled experts
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  • Temperature controlled shipping options
  • Get credited back if a wine fails to impress

Critical Consensus on d’Yquem: Parker, Spectator and… Jefferson?!

In 1784, Thomas Jefferson visited Sauternes. Upon his return to Monticello, Jefferson wrote, “This is the best white wine of France and the best of it is made by Monsieur de Lur-Saluces.” As our first Secretary of State, Jefferson ordered 250 bottles of the 1784 Château d’Yquem for himself — and a few more for President Washington.

Today’s missive might read better if we were to tell you that the wine Jefferson tasted in 1784 was much like the Yquem of today, but of course that’s not the case. The techniques for encouraging the formation of pourriture noble (or “noble rot”) had yet to be invented — techniques that would enable the golden-honey purity of the most age-worthy wine and most priceless white on the planet.

When we entered the courtyard last summer, it had been nearly 20 years since we last visited Château d’Yquem. The vineyards of the château now comprise 310 acres, vines that are not so much tended as nurtured. The call to harvest at Château d’Yquem is the most carefully calibrated in Bordeaux. On average, the vineyard crew passes through and selectively picks each row six times before the harvest is complete. Yields are minuscule — just 9 hectoliters per hectare, roughly one-fifth that of the First Growths of Pauillac, Lafite Rothschild, and Latour. Grapes, caked with pourriture noble, are gently pressed three times before being transferred to oak barrels, where the wine is left to age for three years before bottling.

The 2005 Château d’Yquem is one of the most extraordinary, sought-after bottles ever to come off the estate, earning 97-point crowns from both Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate and Wine Spectator. Brilliant, silver-gold in hue, the nose alone is well worth the price of admission, featuring mouthwatering aromas of bitter honey, beeswax, honeysuckle, and fresh vanilla. Extravagant on entry, exquisite in its focus and pristine delineation, weighty and dense, 2005 was a highly botrytized vintage, making for luscious flavors of wild honey, dried apricot, orange peel, and ripe citrus — finishing with tremendous poise and persistence, arguing gracefully for 25-75 years of cellar slumber!

One of the greatest wines in the WORLD — half-bottles, direct from the estate — only on WineAccess.