2010 Château d'Yquem Sauternes (375 mL) Half-Bottle

If any wine is truly in a class of its own, it’s Château d’Yquem.

Yquem is perhaps the most revered wine in the world. It’s so unique in its quality that, when the wines of Sauternes and Barsac were classified in 1855, it got its own category: Most of the great sweet wines of Sauternes are labeled “Premier Grand Cru Classé,” but only Yquem carries the “Supérieur” distinction. 

Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate has reported on nearly 60 vintages of Château d’Yquem dating back 210 years, and the 98-point 2010 is one of their highest-rated bottles of the 21st century. “This is going to be a very exotic, opulent Yquem!” they wrote about the stunning 2010, using the future tense, since the wine is practically ageless. 

There is no bottle you can cellar with more confidence than Yquem. Consider that Robert Parker himself rated the 1811 vintage 100 points when he tasted it nearly 190 years after bottling. In other words, if there's such a thing as an immortal wine, Château d’Yquem is it.

This 98-pointer represents a prime opportunity to look to the future and put away one of the most exquisite wines in the world. We’ve got 96 half-bottles direct from the château, with perfect provenance and in perfect condition. 

We recommend buying one to enjoy in the near term—life is short, after all—and another couple to keep in the cellar for any moment over the next few decades. 

Drinking the 2010 now, you’re treated to a panoply of aromas and flavors: lemon curd, pineapple, jasmine blossoms, honey, exotic spices, and ginger, all flickering in and out of focus. You could revel in the aromas for hours if taking a sip wasn’t so irresistible, expressing a wave of fruit, spice, minerality, and electric acidity.

Yquem is perhaps the most revered wine on the planet because of the unique conditions and extraordinary effort required to make it. The soils at Yquem are unique—undulating slopes comprised of clay, gravel, and a deep bed of limestone. The autumn mists at Yquem encourage the grapes to form what the French call pourriture noble—“noble rot”—which aids evaporation and thereby concentration. 

The vineyard crew passes through and selectively picks each row an average of six times before the harvest is complete. Yields are minuscule—just nine hectoliters per hectare, roughly one-fifth those of Lafite Rothschild and Latour. The grapes are gently pressed three times before being transferred to 100% new oak barrels, where the wine ages for three years before bottling. 

Perhaps Yquem’s most famous visitor arrived as far back as 1784, when Thomas Jefferson visited Sauternes. Upon his return to Monticello, Jefferson wrote, “This is the best white wine of France.” Jefferson ordered 250 bottles of the 1784 Château d’Yquem for himself—and a few more for President Washington. When you cellar or sip a bottle of Yquem, you’re participating in one of the most sacred traditions in wine, bar none. You owe it to yourself.