2019 Château Rieussec Sauternes Premier Grand Cru Classé

Château Rieussec, together with Château d'Yquem, belongs to the absolute top of the Sauternes wines. Rieussec has the status of 1st Grand Cru 1855. Rieussec is owned by Les Domaines Barons de Rothschild. Everyone also knows that Sauternes is normally packaged in a transparent Bordeaux bottle. See the first exception here! A recycled bottle of dark glass in a different shape with resealable cork. The bottle can be used as a water carafe or vase after use!

The Château Rieussec Sauternes Premier Grand Cru Classé 2019 is a blend of Semillon 89%, Sauvignon blanc 9%, Muscadelle 2%. The Château Rieussec has a delicate golden color with soft green shimmer. Intense nose with enormous aromatic richness. The first notes of citrus zest are followed by lemon tart and then toasty notes reminiscent of freshly baked brioche. The taste offers mandarin zest and candied orange, enlivened by a touch of star anise that underlines the aromatic freshness of the wine. Dense and rich, the taste has good length with a pleasant hint of bitterness in the aftertaste. Despite the alcohol percentage of 14%, Rieussec is always light-footed in the base but sizzling in the mouth.

• Very small production
• An innovative bottle design for a Sauternes wine, with colored glass
• A new label from 2019, graphic and bold, with the emblematic gold crown
• A "recorking" stopper is attached to each bottle. With a replaceable hermetic closure, the Rieussec bottle can be stored in the refrigerator for up to a month. Once empty it's easy to remove the label and turn the bottle into a water pitcher or vase.

Under the tab: Annex you will find the official fact sheet. By the way, did you know that we send this digitally to you with an order as standard and automatically!

ABOUT VINTAGE 2019

The 2019 vintage started well with a mild, dry winter. The good weather continued into early spring, resulting in an early start to the growing cycle. After that, the day and night temperatures cooled, and between March and May there were six times when people held their breath for fear of frost. During this period, the colder and especially drier than usual weather slowed down the growth of the vines. After a relatively cold, rainy start, June suddenly changed, with an early summer heat wave the likes of which had not been seen since 2003. Fortunately, this was short-lived and the vines, catching up in terms of growth, seemed better equipped than previous years to cope with the heat. On July 26, a miraculous rain came, just at the right time to bring about véraison (color change).
This year, as in 2017, the rain in September was very favorable for botrytis. But the harvests turned out to be more complex, with acid rot threatening the purity of the grapes. We had to sort the fruit like gold diggers to remove the sour grapes to keep only the nicely botrytized grapes.