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Wine Description
The Story
This noble sweet white wine, graceful and weightless, is a subtle wine that is like no other. If it is the very expression of the quintessence of this appellation with balance and freshness, it also has the strength and magnificence among the greatest Sauternes. Climens is characterized by brilliance or depth, borne only of its unique terroir.
This special grace, the result of tightness and minerality is also blessed with an extraordinary aromatic palette, mingling perfumes of flowers, fruits, spices, and often even a hint of eucalyptus or fresh mint. In their youth the wines, which have a pale colour that is reminiscent of the aromas, are dominated by citrus fruit (grapefruit, lemon, citron), fresh fruit and white flowers. Sweet spices and other deeper, confected fruit flavours will develop with the passing of time. Whatever the vintage, the wines continue to age slowly, retaining their harmonious blend of sweetness and freshness for decades, which signs their inimitable charm.
Climens is most famous for the elegance of its wine, but also for its sustained excellence: even in less than great vintages, the wines produced are always magical.
Appellation: Barsac (Sauternes)
Classification: First Growth of Sauternes – Barsac from 1855
Area under Wine: 31 hectares
Grape variety: 100% Semillon
Soil: ferrous clay sand on fissured starfish limestone sub-soil
Yield: Global Yield (on average over 20 years): 13hl/ha
First Growth yield (average over 20 years): 7hl/ha (i.e. 25 à 30 000 bottles per year)
Average age of vines: 38 years
Density of vine planting: 6 600 vines/ha
Vineyard management: Biodynamic since 2010
Vinification: in small lots in French oak barrels with 30 to 40% new oak each year
Barrel maturation: 20 to 22 months
Second Wine: Cyprès de Climens
Vintage 1945
The best vintage in the world – 1947 or 1945? Tastingbook has tasted all the best wines from these two great vintages.
If wine producers from different regions were asked to name the best vintages in their wine history, most would name 1947 or 1945 as one of the greats. If we then compared them, there would probably only be one vintage that most, if not all, producers had named on the list – 1947.
We wanted to test this theory and we tasted them against each other and the winner was 1947 – by a long shot.
The 1947 vintage was a magical vintage. It goes down in history as one of the only vintages that all the well-established quality wine regions in the world were blessed with superb weather conditions. Heatwaves have been experienced all over the world and, for example, all of Europe was blazing under the blazing sun and experiencing a heatwave during the summer. This resulted in very concentrated and very ripe grapes. Growers found it difficult to handle very ripe grapes with high sugar levels because there was a constant risk of bacterial contamination in less hygienic wineries that did not have artificial cooling systems. Since there was no technology to use, many relied on huge blocks of ice to cool the room temperature and even put ice in their fermentation tanks.
This vintage has proven to produce very long-lasting wines from around the world. The wines are marked by a sweet, ripe fruit character and warming alcohol. Due to unhygienic winemaking facilities, many wines exhibit volatile characters. Some might find this a flaw, but for many mature wine lovers, this feature is even a favorite character. However, when purchasing wines from this vintage one should be aware that there is a high level of bottle variation and the risk of having highly volatile wines is remarkably high.
1945 was an exceptional year throughout France, from Côte-Rôtie to Bordeaux. Due to the hot and dry conditions, the grapes were very concentrated and produced an extraordinary, but unfortunately low, yield. The 1945 harvest was an early harvest, beginning on the same date as 1982, September 13. The wines started life with massive levels of tannin and took several decades to develop. Due to the high levels of tannins, many wines still show well today.