2020 G de Guiraud

The 2020 G de Guiraud has quite a creamy bouquet compared to its peers, simple and lacking bandwidth. The palate is ripe and sweet (a bit of residual sugar here) with tropical fruit on the finish. This is punters' white—short-term only. Tasted blind at the annual Southwold tasting.

A new wine from this estate and the inaugural vintage, the 2020 Château Guiraud Blanc Sec comes from the estate’s vines in Sauternes and is 70% Sauvignon and 30% Semillon that saw partial malolactic fermentation and spent 12 months in barrels. It shows a medium gold hue as well as a bright, crisp, yet still rich bouquet of caramelized Meyer lemons, lime, toasted break, white flowers, and some classic chalky, mineral-like nuances. Beautiful on the palate as well, it has a layered, medium-bodied, nicely concentrated mouthfeel, good acidity, and a clean finish. It's a richer yet balanced and still lively white that's going to shine on the dinner table. I'd drink bottles over the coming 4-6 years or so, but I certainly wouldn't be surprised to see this evolve nicely for well over a decade.

G de Guiraud, the long-time dry white of Château Guiraud, has for years been one of great bargains of the wine world. It still is, but you can understand why, as an 1855 classified estate in Sauternes, Guiraud would want it to be joined by a more serious, structured white that can rival the great whites of the classified Médoc estates. This is its inaugural vintage (and also the 10th anniversary since organic certification at Guiraud), and it's a confident start, with creamy citrus, apricot and white pear, clearly differentiating from the more zippy charms of G de Guiraud. Although this is 0g/l residual sugar, so bone dry, the wine is fermented for three weeks in barrels that were previously used for Guiraud's flagship Sauternes, and that combined with the heat of the 2020 summer combine to give this gourmet, rich and succulent character. Put this together with an edge of bitter almond and oyster shell salinity and you have a white wine with presence. I look forward to seeing how this character is expressed in a vintage with more contrasting acidity. Harvest from August 20 to September 7, 40hl/h yield.