Wine of the week: a thoroughly delicious sweetie from Bordeaux

last updated 23 April 2021

2013 Castelnau de Suduiraut, Sauternes, Bordeaux, France

£14.99, half bottle, reduced to £12.99 each in a “mix six”, Majestic.co.uk; £15.50, exelwines.co.uk; £16.87, strictlywine.co.uk; £16.80, shelvedwine.com; £16.95, fintrywines.co.uk; £17.77, winepoole.co.uk; £17.99, handford.net.

One of the first truly fine wines that I ever tasted, back in 1987, was 1983 Château Suduiraut, and one of the most memorable was the 1899 vintage I tasted a few years later. This estate has always been one of my favourite sweet-wine properties. The other day I had the great pleasure of Zooming with Suduiraut’s technical director, Pierre Montégut. We chatted about the dry white project here and we tasted the soon to be released 2020 Blanc Sec de Suduiraut. A plush vintage, this is a seriously attractive, dry wine that should certainly help to introduce yet more people to this epic estate.

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But it is the sweet wines that rock my boat and, alongside the stellar 2010 Château Suduiraut (£55, vinatis.co.uk), which is drinking perfectly now, we also looked at the “second label” Castelnau. I was delighted to hear that the fully mature 2013 vintage is alive and kicking in our market and so it is my featured wine this week.

The 2013 was a difficult vintage, but it was also a very good one You have both botrytis (noble rot) and also passerillage (dried grapes) notes in this heady sweetie and, alongside the juicy, honeyed, orange-blossom theme, there is neat acidity balancing the 148g/litre sugar. This is a thoroughly delicious wine and I am certain that this cheeky half bottle will make you fall for this property, too.

Matthew Jukes is a winner of the International Wine & Spirit Competition’s Communicator of the Year (matthewjukes.com)

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Matthew Jukes has worked in the UK wine business for well over three decades and during this time has written 14 wine books.

Matthew regularly lectures, judges, speaks at wine conferences and runs masterclass tastings for both corporate and private clients all over the world. Matthew is also the creator of his ground-breaking initiative, the One Day Wine School, an indulgent day of tasting and learning first performed in 2006.

He has been the MoneyWeek wine correspondent since 2006 and has written a weekly column for the Daily Mail’s Weekend Magazine since 1999. His four highly-acclaimed, annual wine reports – the Burgundy En Primeur Report, the Bordeaux En Primeur Report, the Piemonte Report and the 100 Best Australian Wines – are published on his website, www.matthewjukes.com.

Matthew is one of the world’s leading experts on Australian wine and, with Brisbane-based wine writer Tyson Stelzer, runs an annual competition in Australia to find ‘The Great Australian Red’. He was made Honorary Australian of the Year in the UK at the 2012 Australia Day Foundation Gala dinner.

Matthew is a winner of the International Wine and Spirit Competition's Communicator of the Year Trophy. His thoughts, recommendations and tastings notes are followed very closely by the wine world at large.