Premier Cru Classé Sauternes producer Château Suduiraut has released an 'entry level' dry white wine, Le Blanc Sec, demonstrating the trend for Sauternes producers to also produce more dry styles.
Château Suduiraut Le Blanc Sec released
Le Blanc Sec de Suduiraut will retail at around £13, around half the price of the château’s existing dry white, ‘vin de garde’ S de Suduiraut.
‘It is dry, fresh, fruity [and ready] to drink immediately,’ said Corinne Michot-Ilic, spokesperson Château Suduiraut.
‘It is more of an entry level dry white wine,’ she told Decanter.com. But the château said that it had chosen plots carefully for Le Blanc Sec, which was also ‘a wine of character’ designed to meet consumers demand for white wines with more personality.
An increasing number of Sauternes producers have turned to dry white wines amid a sluggish market for their signature sweet wines in recent years.
Suduiraut’s Le Blanc Sec is a blend of 67% Sémillon and 33% Sauvignon Blanc.
Six hundred cases were produced this year, but the Sauternes estate plans to double the volume next year. Suduiraut makes fewer than 500 cases of S de Suduiraut per year.
Wider trend
Greater numbers of Sauternes and Barsac producers turned to making dry white wines when the yields of the 2012 vintage were particularly low.
Olivier Bernard, co-owner of Château Guiraud, previously told Decanter.com that the estate planned on doubling the amount of Clos des Lunes dry white wines produced over the next few years.
Some producers have said that they hope to change labelling rules, so that dry whites made in Sauternes can be labelled AOC Graves, as opposed to AOC Bordeaux as it currently is.
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