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News
Château Suduiraut 2020 reveals a bright golden yellow colour. The nose opens with aromas of tropical fruit such as lychee, mango and pineapple leading into hints of candied fruits, yellow peach, then ginger and delicate woody notes. The attack is ample, and the palate is opulent yet underpinned by great tautness. Notes of yellow peach and candied apricot are still present. Yellow fruit emerges in the velvety, spicy finish. The overall character is rich and elegant, the hallmark of a great Suduiraut.
Pierre Montégut, Technical Director, September 2022
Wine Description
The Story
Classed as a Premier Cru in 1855, it is made from grapes selected from the finest terroirs of the property. This wine is hand crafted at every stage of its elaboration and reveals remarkable finesse and complexity and a golden colour reminiscent of the sun that made it possible. With age the bright gold evolves to a dark amber colour.
With an extensive life-span, it powerfully and harmoniously combines fruit and floral aromas with roasted and candied notes.
Its superlative elegance comes from a match of total opposites: a voluptuous texture, mineral freshness and the heat of spices. Château Suduiraut is designed for all those who enjoy sensory and emotional experiences that are both rich and full of surprises and leave a lasting memory.
Wine Information
The autumn and winter of 2019-2020 were very wet. Total rainfall reached 519 mm in March, more than half the annual average. It was accompanied by mild temperatures, leading to bud break more than two weeks earlier than usual. This advance persisted, even with significantly cooler weather at the end of the month and a frosty day on 27th March. Flowering, although early, took place in unsettled weather, causing coulure. The impact was very irregular, varying according to the terroir, how early the plot developed, and the age of the vines. Good weather returned in July, with conditions becoming very dry, and above all very hot. The water reserves enabled the vines to withstand the successive heat waves, and a little rain in mid-August brought the ripening of the grapes back on track. The ripening process drew to a close about ten days ahead of schedule under very favourable weather conditions: hot days and cool nights, which preserved the range of aromas.
The harvest began on 16th September and ended on 5th November, with a total of four selective pickings. We harvested mainly passerillés grapes on this first clean-up picking that lasted four days from 16th September. The quantity harvested was very small. A first period of unsettled weather brought 68 mm of rain over 10 days.
At the end of September our hopes were raised with Botrytis Cinerea covering the whole vineyard, but unfortunately a second period of unsettled weather brought significant rainfall.
Before this, we quickly carried out another selective picking in the vineyard's finest terroirs on 29th and 30th September. We resumed the second selective picking only on 12th and 15th October.
On 19th October our decision to wait for a sunnier, more stable period yielded excellent results with an abundant third selective picking, which brought wellbotrytised grapes, of high quality and satisfactory quantity (350 hl). The third selective picking ended on 24th October. Another rainy period brought the harvest to a halt. With 30 mm more rainfall, the sugar content dropped sharply and we took another risk waiting to take full advantage of forecast sunshine. We started the fourth and final picking on 2nd November. Once again, the outcome was successful. We harvested abundant, healthy batches, worthy of our Grand Vin. The pickers meticulously selected only those grapes affected by the right type of rot. Ultimately the yield was 8.5 hectolitres per hectare, the batches were of an extremely high quality reflecting Château Suduiraut 2020 profile.
Vintage 2020
In Bordeaux, the heat led to early flowering. Additionally, this led to an early harvest after a very hot summer. As a starting point, there is great maturity in the grapes, and we can expect a more opulent vintage than in recent years.
This year's summer was the hottest since 1959, but the rain fell at just the right time during the growing season. The harvest took place two weeks before the norm and will produce grapes with high alcohol potential and the lowest acidity since the 2003 vintage. As they say in Bordeaux: “It was a good and extreme growing season which , hopefully, also produces great wines.”