1. It’s for foie gras
This advice is the golden cage of Sauternes. At the start, there was a certain pride in the appellation in having succeeded in implanting this automatism in the minds of the French. Christmas meal, New Year’s Eve, opportunities to dress well, to spread the pretty tablecloth and to put “noble products” on it (therefore expensive, especially at this time). Inviting Sauternes to this table is a way of anchoring wine in chic. And lock him up there for good.
Is Sauternes-Foie Gras still a good match? Yes, even if it is very invasive in the mouth. The problem is not there. It is nestled in the ignorance of the possible. Sauternes has a host of allies: a chicken tagine with dried fruits, a duck with orange, a guinea fowl with raisins. A Thai style beef, spiced up more. Blue-veined cheeses (Roquefort, Bleu, Stilton). Fruit pies. And more simply: a roast chicken with crispy skin, pasta with mushrooms. Or … nothing. Just a drink to replace dessert, basically just you and him. This is perhaps the safest deal.
2. It is an expensive wine
Everything depends on the perspective. Rare are the Sauternes under 15 euros, the price is generally around 20 euros a bottle. In this, yes, it is expensive. However, many properties are struggling to meet their costs. Because in fact, it’s not expensive for what it is.
The grapes selected to produce Sauternes, partly dried, contain less water than the grapes picked for dry wines. It takes about three times as many grapes to produce a bottle of Sauternes as it does for a bottle of Bordeaux red. In addition, the harvest is spread over several weeks, with successive passages through the rows of vines. It is more expensive to produce and therefore, logically, more expensive to sell.
Then, Sauternes goes through an unprecedented crisis. The prices do not go up, unlike most wines. Sales fall each year and represent, according to the magazine The Red and the White (fall 2021), half less than in 2000. A sign that is not mistaken, the land is at half mast. La Safer, which lists the price of land, estimates at 30,000 euros per hectare of vines in Sauternes, ten times less than one hectare in Saint-Emilion, half as much as vines around Mont Brouilly, in Beaujolais. . For those who want to invest, therefore, Sauternes is really not expensive.
3. Sauternes is sweet
Here is at least a received idea which is true. But for how long ? The finances of the estates are fragile, and encourage us to explore other avenues. One of them is to produce, alongside the sweet, a small part of dry white wine. With grapes picked earlier. Easier to produce, with a better yield, the business is interesting. Even if the wine is less valued, it provides protection, a parachute in the event of a complicated year for late harvests.
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