Sauternes Tasting, Château Gilette - Le Sommelier, Exclusive Wine Agents
Date: Mar 28/08, Fri Time: 02:00:00-05:00:00 Style: Drop-In
Sauternes Tasting, Château Gilette – Our friends at Le Sommelier Inc, Exclusive Wine Agents arrived with Julie Gonet-Médeville, winemaker and proprietor of Château Gilette from the Sauternes region of France.
This was a great opportunity to sample her luscious, botrytis-affected wines including her sweet and luscious 100% botrytis-affected "Creme-de-Tete" wines.
Wines sampled included:
1985 Creme-de-Tete
1983 Creme-de-Tete
1982 Creme-de-Tete
1979 Creme-de-Tete
1954 Demi-Sec
Château Gilette does not sell its wines until they have been aged for at least 15 to 20 years. Even then, it is worth waiting another 10+ years. For 90% of us at this tasting, it was a lot of fun to enjoy a wine made before we were born. Yet the wines still showed vibrant acidity.
Château Gilette, is unique amongst Sauternes producers in that they age their wines for many years, sometimes decades, and only in concrete vats. Current owner and winemaker, Julie Gonet-Médeville, continues this tradition begun by her grandfather René Médeville more than 70 years ago.
Aging in concrete allows the wines to mature more evenly, and develop more complex aromas and flavours than ones he had formerly aged in oak. The vat permits the wines to breathe so slowly that the winery is content to allow them to age for up to 20 years before bottling. In fact, the youngest wine in their collection (1985) just had its 23rd birthday!
Robert Parker Jr. had this to say: "Château Gilette is one of the finest-made wines in Sauternes despite the fact that Gilette was not classified."
On of the top 10 best tastings held at the Fine Wine Reserve. Big thanks goes out to Julie and Bernard at Le Sommelier!
