Chateau Guiraud 1GCC Sauternes

The Château Guiraud estate is located in the Sauternes region and, together with its neighbor, Château d'Yquem, is the only 1er Cru Classé winery in the Sauternes region. The Guiraud winery was owned by the Maxwell family, who made significant investments in the property, but the wines they produced remained mediocre. In 1981, the estate was purchased and a few years later turned into one of the best in Sauternes by Canadian Hamilton Narby. Today, 85 hectares of Guiraud vineyards are located on one of the hills above the village of Sauternes. The following grape varieties are grown here: 65% Sémillon and 35% Sauvignon Blanc. Harvested grapes are fermented in oak barrels. Then the wine is aged in oak barrels (50% new barrels) for 2 months. The Guiraud winery is very ambitious and aims to produce a wine that rivals d'Yquem. The wines produced by this wine have an amazingly rich taste, especially given the high content of Sauvignon Blanc grapes, and are considered some of the best Sauternes wines today.

This appellation is home for elite dessert wines that are produced only from grapes with a high natural residual sugar level. Only Semillon, Sauvignon Blanc, Muscadet and Sauvignon Gris grapes can become a Sauternes wine - they obtain the high natural residual sugar level due to Botrytis cinerea or the so called "noble rot". The production is rather complex - grapes are picked out one by one. Some years harvesting can last up to a month. After that wine is aged in oak barrels up to three years. The result is an exquisite, fresh, juicy and golden dessert wine with white flower, honey and citrus notes. It is exactly the high level of acidity and sweetness that makes these wines perfectly balanced and exclusive samples.

Bordeaux wines are considered to be the most prestige and renowned in the world. The region is mainly known for its dry red wines made from Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Merlot grapes, and one can almost always find the word Château (French for „castle”) on Bordeaux wine labels. In order to understand the style of wine most desirable for your taste, it is recommended to try different samples from the Left as well as the Right Bank of The Gironde. Both banks differ not only with different soil, but also with the share of specific wines. There are several classifications in Bordeaux but the main one, introduced in 1855, hasn’t changed since and still impacts wine prices nowadays. A few years later, in 1936, an alternative classification system - Crus Bourgeois - was established. Bordeaux is known for a commerce praxis called en primeur - it means that a buyer can purchase wines immediately after harvest and prior to production for a substantially lower price, thus obtaining the opportunity to sell them for a larger profit later in the future. Bordeaux wines can be described as big, complex and with a strong character, but very friendly at the same time so that each and every wine lover could find something tasty and suitable for a great wine night.