From the highest point in Barsac, Château Climens looks out upon the entire appellation. It's sloping vineyards, planted exclusively to Semillon, provide excellent drainage for the vines, and a favorable microclimate, alternating between morning mist and daytime sun, allows for the early development of noble rot. Stability has served Climens to great benefit, for only five families have owned the estate since it was founded in the fourteenth century. The Lurtons, the current owners, have been in control since 1971.

Only 2,500 cases of the Grand Vin are produced here each year. Quality, not quantity, is the name of the game. This is an elegant Sauternes, which offers a particularly complex combination of citrus and pit fruits, honey and toasty oak, as well as uncanny clarity and definition in the mouth. Never fat or weighty, it's also capable of developing great complexity with bottle aging. In an exceptional year, as in 1929 and 1949, Climens has been known to surpass Château d'Yquem.