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19 March 2025: the Yquem Day that nearly wasn’t
Recently returned from his now annual pilgrimage to Château d’Yquem, db's Bordeaux correspondent Colin Hay reflects on Yquem’s "extraordinary and exceptional" 2022 – the vintage that nearly wasn’t. The post 19 March 2025: the Yquem Day that nearly wasn’t appeared first on The Drinks Business.
Recently returned from his now annual pilgrimage to Château d’Yquem, db's Bordeaux correspondent, Colin Hay reflects on Yquem’s "extraordinary and exceptional" 2022 – the vintage that nearly wasn’t.
All good fine wine aficionados (if, quite frankly, not many others) know the answer to the following question. Indeed, it might almost provide a kind of test of fine wine geekery.
On the 16 October, then, three days after all seemed lost, the fastest and, as Lorenzo again recounts, the most frenzied harvest in Yquem’s history began. It was completed in three whistlestop passes through the vineyard and concluded on the 26 October . The result is a wine of exceptional and rare quality, even for Yquem, and of quantity too.
2022, as I reported in my en primeur coverage at the time, is a vintage forged out of climatic excess. It was a veritable vigneron’s nightmare to live through – with intense heat, incessant drought, wildfires in the forests of the Graves (less than 10km away from Yquem), the Landes (80km to the west) and the Médoc (on the other side of Bordeaux to the North), the risk of the evacuation of the vineyard and chai and some of the most violent hail storms in living memory with hail stones the size of hens’ eggs. And that’s before we get to the anxious anticipation of the (very) let onset botrytis and the question, when it did arrive, of whether conditions favourable to its propagation and the concentration of the fruit would establish themselves in time.
It is interesting to re-visit my conclusion at the time, for Sauternes and Barsac more generally. I wrote then, “this is a rare and wonderful vintage that will reward the patience of those who were prepared to take the risk of waiting to pick until the optimal concentration of the grapes had been achieved after the late onset of botrytis and the return of the warm and dry conditions required to impart its signature on the grapes”.
Whilst none of the details are wrong, it doesn’t quite seem to capture the inherent stress, the tension and the drama of the vintage. The following tasting note is my small tribute to the labours of those who worked in the vineyard and in the chai to make it possible and who lived that stress, that tension and that drama daily – and who triumphed.
Yquem 2022 (Sauternes; 80% Sémillon; 20% Sauvignon Blanc; the final yield is around the historic average of 10 hl/ha; 160 g/l of residual sugar, the second highest ever recorded after the legendary 1945 vintage; pH 3.90, on a par with the 2019; 13.5% alcohol; 100% new oak though you have nothing directly to indicate that). The highest proportion of Sémillon since 2018. A wine of incredible aromatic purity, that reminds me most of the 2009. Apricot. Toasted brioche. Even a little eucalyptus and medicinal herbal elements, but very subtly. An aromatic brilliance. Saffron, honey. Angelica. Frangipane. Nutty. Butterscotch. Beurre noisette. Roasted pineapple, that lovely slight hint of crème brulée burnt sugar bitterness and a hint of the orange Seville marmalade notes to come. Almost a little hint of candied rose petals. Rose Turkish delight. A trace of grapefruit zest which is incredible in a wine so intensely sweet and solaire. So fresh despite the incredible density. What I love is the way the acidity grips and takes in charge the wine from the mid-palate to the very long distant finish. Very saline on the finish – more and more so, with almost a hint of liquorice! The freshness sensation is sensational! The freshness here is integral to the power and puissance of the wine, unlike any other wine of the appellation. As if the salinity is more and more concentrated as the scope of the spherical core slowly reduces in amplitude towards the finish. I love too the return to the notes of roasted pineapple, lime zest and grapefruit on the finish. So salivating in its sapid freshness on the finish. 100.
All good fine wine aficionados (if, quite frankly, not many others) know the answer to the following question. Indeed, it might almost provide a kind of test of fine wine geekery.
What day falls always on the third Wednesday of March?
‘Yquem Day’, ‘the vinous start of Spring’ and ‘the release of the new vintage of Yquem’ might all seem like acceptable answers. Well, yes and no. For there is a supplementary question that we can also pose.What do the following have in common: 1952, 1972, 1992 and 2012?
This, too, is not a bad test – though that is not what I’m interested in here. The answer that I am looking for is the following: these are vintages ending in ‘2’ where no Yquem was made. Yquem, as this suggests, has something of a thing with vintages ending in ‘2’. For if there is no Yquem in any given vintage there is, logically, no Yquem day either. You might now begin to see where this is headed. For, odd though it might at first seem, above all given its majesty, nobility and splendour (to which we will return below), 2022 was the thickness of a grape skin away from joining the list of Yquem’s non-vintages. As Lorenzo Pasquini, Yquem’s estate manager recounted to me, this was a very close call. On 13 October, on the eve of what would have been only his second vintage at Yquem, he rang Pierre Lurton to break to him the news that despite the recent rainfall and the prospect – finally – of botrytis in the vineyard it would take a miraculous change in the weather conditions for it to produce a vintage worth harvesting. That no longer seemed possible. In short, the sequence was about to be extended: 1952, 1972, 1992, 2012 … and 2022. Two days later Pierre Lurton’s phone rang again. It was Lorenzo, again. The vintage was saved. A meteorological transformation had occurred, with a strong southwestern wind installed just when all seemed lost. The effect was instantaneous and dramatic, as it needed to be, with the air drying and temperatures rising rapidly (climbing to 34 degrees on the 18 October) and, in the process, establishing the conditions for the perfect propagation of botrytis throughout the vineyard with an almost unprecedented concentration of the grapes (with potential alcohol levels rising between 2 and 3 degrees daily). Indeed, so complete was the change in conditions that the problem now was the task of harvesting the entire vineyard before the grapes became desiccated and the sugar levels too elevated.
On the 16 October, then, three days after all seemed lost, the fastest and, as Lorenzo again recounts, the most frenzied harvest in Yquem’s history began. It was completed in three whistlestop passes through the vineyard and concluded on the 26 October . The result is a wine of exceptional and rare quality, even for Yquem, and of quantity too.
2022, as I reported in my en primeur coverage at the time, is a vintage forged out of climatic excess. It was a veritable vigneron’s nightmare to live through – with intense heat, incessant drought, wildfires in the forests of the Graves (less than 10km away from Yquem), the Landes (80km to the west) and the Médoc (on the other side of Bordeaux to the North), the risk of the evacuation of the vineyard and chai and some of the most violent hail storms in living memory with hail stones the size of hens’ eggs. And that’s before we get to the anxious anticipation of the (very) let onset botrytis and the question, when it did arrive, of whether conditions favourable to its propagation and the concentration of the fruit would establish themselves in time.
It is interesting to re-visit my conclusion at the time, for Sauternes and Barsac more generally. I wrote then, “this is a rare and wonderful vintage that will reward the patience of those who were prepared to take the risk of waiting to pick until the optimal concentration of the grapes had been achieved after the late onset of botrytis and the return of the warm and dry conditions required to impart its signature on the grapes”.
Whilst none of the details are wrong, it doesn’t quite seem to capture the inherent stress, the tension and the drama of the vintage. The following tasting note is my small tribute to the labours of those who worked in the vineyard and in the chai to make it possible and who lived that stress, that tension and that drama daily – and who triumphed.
Yquem 2022 (Sauternes; 80% Sémillon; 20% Sauvignon Blanc; the final yield is around the historic average of 10 hl/ha; 160 g/l of residual sugar, the second highest ever recorded after the legendary 1945 vintage; pH 3.90, on a par with the 2019; 13.5% alcohol; 100% new oak though you have nothing directly to indicate that). The highest proportion of Sémillon since 2018. A wine of incredible aromatic purity, that reminds me most of the 2009. Apricot. Toasted brioche. Even a little eucalyptus and medicinal herbal elements, but very subtly. An aromatic brilliance. Saffron, honey. Angelica. Frangipane. Nutty. Butterscotch. Beurre noisette. Roasted pineapple, that lovely slight hint of crème brulée burnt sugar bitterness and a hint of the orange Seville marmalade notes to come. Almost a little hint of candied rose petals. Rose Turkish delight. A trace of grapefruit zest which is incredible in a wine so intensely sweet and solaire. So fresh despite the incredible density. What I love is the way the acidity grips and takes in charge the wine from the mid-palate to the very long distant finish. Very saline on the finish – more and more so, with almost a hint of liquorice! The freshness sensation is sensational! The freshness here is integral to the power and puissance of the wine, unlike any other wine of the appellation. As if the salinity is more and more concentrated as the scope of the spherical core slowly reduces in amplitude towards the finish. I love too the return to the notes of roasted pineapple, lime zest and grapefruit on the finish. So salivating in its sapid freshness on the finish. 100. 
