Château d'Yquem occupies a special place for us, as it probably does for many wine lovers. To understand why, your first port of call might be some words we posted recently about the role of botrytis in producing great dessert wines. No wine is more able to capture the landscape and weather of a given year in liquid form and preserve it for many decades, or even centuries.

Yquem's history dates to the 15th century when the estate was owned by the Sauvage family. Wine was probably first produced in the 16th century, but the first vineyard records date to 1711. Famously, Thomas Jefferson described it as "the best white wine of France ", ordering 250 bottles of the 1784 vintage, although at this stage it was still a dry wine.

The Lur-Saluces family owned Chateau d'Yquem for over two centuries and during that time, they helped to establish the style of wine which Sauternes is known for today, including techniques like late-harvesting, successive 'tries' or passes through the vineyard, and the intentional cultivation of botrytis. They also established a reputation for producing the highest quality and their wines were in high demand by royalty and aristocrats throughout Europe. In 1855, the estate was classified as a Premier Cru Supérieur, the only wine to receive this recognition (the other top estates are merely 'Premier Cru' without the 'Superieur' designation!). The estate prospered until phylloxera struck Bordeaux and it suffered further during the First World War.

Comte Alexandre de Lur-Saluces oversaw the sale of Yquem to LVMH in 1999. Pierre Lurton took over as Managing Director in 2004 and remains at the helm here, as well as at Cheval Blanc. In 2020 Lorenzo Pasquini became Yquem's Estate Manager.

Yquem's 113-hectare estate is planted to 100 hectares of vines, with many old vines. An ongoing re-planting program sees 2-3 hectares of old vines replanted each year. It takes five years for new vines to come into production, so 12 hectares are out of production at any one time. Fruit from a further 20 hectares is kept back from the grand vin, as the vines reach the age to attain sufficient quality. Yquem is famous for the obsessive level of quality control and high costs of labour, with multiple tries at harvest, sometimes picking individual grapes as they reach the correct level of botrytisation.

Unlike at other estates, there is no second wine. If the vintage is not good enough, no Yquem is made! Alexandre de Lur-Saluces was famous for this approach, for instance in 1910, 1915, 1930, 1951, 1952, 1964, 1972, 1974, and 1992. Pierre Lurton followed in his footsteps with the 2012 vintage.