BORDEAUX EN PRIMEUR Chateau d´Yquem 1er Cru Supérieur Sauternes 2021 (375ml)

99/100 The Drink Business
Tutankhamun gold, maybe a hint of buttercup. I find this more direct and intense than the 2020. Yet this is also a wine that exudes balance and harmony, even at this nascent stage. Beautifully limpid and with a disguised natural power. Supremely aerial. Green apple skin. Saffron. Fresh ginger. A hint of confit ginger too. Lime. White grapefruit. A touch of fleur de sel. Marzipan. White almonds. Mango. Guava. Passionfruit. Pineapple – entirely pure and crisply fresh. All in great purity. This is floral, too. Mimosa. Buttercup (almost the leitmotif here). On the palate I find this tight and tense, yet so incredibly softly textured. And, above all, intense and captivating. Sparklingly striking and dynamic – and held together by the salinity as much as by the acidity, the two in fact working together, giving this an incredible aging potential. Delicate in its intensity. Sapid and with lovely waves of saline-inflected juicy fluidity. Even now this is a wine of very considerable complexity – built from assembling the finest botrytised grapes from the best of the couronne (the crown) of Bommes (with the Château of Yquem at the epicentre). This finishes with the most glorious bitter sugar note – burnt caramel just perfectly on the edge of bitterness. So accessible but so totally ageless and, for now, almost cool in its freshness. 

97/100 The Wine Independent
The 2021 d'Yquem is composed of 65% Sémillon and 35% Sauvignon Blanc. It has 148 grams per liter of residual sugar, making for a relatively rich style and the sweetest Yquem since 2017. Pale lemon-gold colored, perfumed notes of orange peel, juicy peaches, grapefruit, and honeycomb slowly emerge from the glass, followed by suggestions of jasmine tea, fresh ginger, and lime blossoms. The palate is fantastically satiny, with great tension and loads of spicy sparks complementing the citrusy flavors, finishing with epic length and a zesty lift. 54,000 bottles were made. The alcohol is 13.9%, and the pH is 3.79.

96/100 Vinous
The 2021 Yquem was tasted in Amsterdam, the first wine poured at a lunch, thereby allowing me a longer period to examine it. Slightly burnished in hue, it has a very attractive bouquet with scents of dried quince, clementine, linseed and subtle candle wax, perhaps more discrete than usual, but certainly fresh and vibrant. The palate is medium-bodied and viscous on the entry, a Yquem with perhaps a lighter chassis than recent vintages, prioritizing poise and purity over horsepower— exactly the right approach in such a challenging season. It opens wonderfully in the glass, gaining more frangipane and kaki fruit scents, though it seems to have a lighter and more tensile finish than the 2020 or 2019. As such, I suspect that it will be comparatively approachable and, of course, delicious. Readers should note that I will probably re-taste the 2021 in Bordeaux during primeur.

95/100 Wine Advocate
The 2021 d'Yquem exhibits a complex bouquet of rose, exotic fruits and mandarin orange mingled with spring flowers, rose and crème brûlée, followed by a medium to full-bodied, ample and seamless palate that's suave and layered, with a deep core and a long finish that's lent definition by delicate bitterness that offsets the 148 grams per liter residual sugar. This blend of 65% Sémillon and 35% Sauvignon Blanc was matured, as usual, in all new barrels, but the new oak is perfectly integrated and barely noticeable.