How The Sweet Wine of Bordeaux Is Made

This video covers the processes required to make the famous sweet wine of Bordeaux. Learn more about the natural process known as the noble rot which includes the instigation by a Botrytis cinerea fungus.

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Viticulture and wine making in Bordeaux dates back thousands of years to the Roman times However, it wasn’t until the 1600s that sweet wines became popular within the region With the arrival of the Dutch in the early 17th century demands shifted within Bordeaux

Moving away from lighter red wines towards more structured medium bodied Reds as well as sweet white wines Although Bordeaux today is still dominated by red grape varieties the areas of Sauternes And Barsac are identified as being prime locations for white wine production and some of the world’s greatest sweet wines are produced here

What grape series here? In our region we have three types of grapes Semillon which is the prominent grape that originated in sit down probably around the 4th century It brings a lot of nectars a lot of structure to the wine. Then you complement it with the

Sauvignon Blanc, which we consider a contributor of citrus characteristics and the third grape that we have is Muscadelle It’s not prominent. It’s very it’s it’s very thin-skinned grape So it’s very susceptible to disease and you need to have very good clay to have very good Muscadelle So today most people have mostly Semillon

Complemented with a bitter Sauvignon Blanc and some places have a bit of Muscadelle These grapes are grown all around the world. However, very few places have the required climatic conditions to produce sweet wines of this style

Not to be confused with fortified wines such as sherry or port the sweet wines of Sauterne and Barsac undergo a Fascinating natural process known as noble rot Instigated by a fungus called botrytis cinerea noble rot can only occur under highly precise conditions

We are in a specific microclimate that encourages the proliferation of botrytis and the Microclimate alternates between these humid mornings and these dry sunny afternoons that allows the evaporation of water and the concentration of sugar So more technically botrytis attacks grapes and makes little holes in the skin

And in the afternoon the water is going to evaporate through these holes and you’re going to concentrate your sugar Basically, we have a lot of Indian summers in this region so this going back and forth between these misty humid mornings, and these sunny afternoons is a

Prerequisite to controlling the botrytis to evolve into what we call noble rot. So Botrytis. What flavours is it going to give the wine? So in addition to helping us concentrate the grape and also produce glycerol, which gives wines texture Botrytis gives us aromas. It’s very hard to explain the characteristics of these aromas

It’s very personal some people associate it in a very young wine to some kind of Grapefruit characteristic the zestiness. And older wines I think it’s easier to spot it as a spicy characteristics Sauternes and Barsac now lead the way for high-end sweet wine production around the world

However, the history of this particular winemaking practice is somewhat contested There’s a lot of different stories that people tell about how we came to make sweet wine There’s the the great legend of a Chateau where the owner went hunting and told everybody please wait till I get back

And then when he got back there was all this fungus and you know often they had the idea of making sweet wines there’s also the story of the Dutch that were very present in Bordeaux because they were building the drainage system up in the Merdoc and they had a love and

A knowledge of botrytis to them German area in Austria, so they brought that knowledge to Bordeaux and helped us develop The techniques to turn these botrytis grapes into sweet wines So it’s probably a little bit of both a happy accident

But also the right people at the right place with the knowledge to help us develop Wine making in the appellation Sauternes in Barsac is often a huge challenge because of the unique conditions required the noble rot to occur Not enough moisture and the grapes will dry out before the onset of fungus

Too much moisture and the fungus will turn to gray rot a negative result that effects any different parts destroying their fruit Well, everything links back to botrytis and unfortunately but rises an anarchist, so it doesn’t attack a bunch of berry all in one go

It’s gonna start a little bit here a little bit there And as a result, when we hand harvest we have to go and look at each bunch and pick the berries that are ready So in a vineyard, you’re going to go through in our in our case

I could say we go through six to eight times during a period of six to eight weeks. Wow. each person looking at a vine and Picking the fruit that’s reached the right level of concentration. So here you’re in a first growth

So we’re looking for twenty one – twenty two degrees of potential alcohol. So it’s very concentrated fruit We’re picking those berry by berry We’re gonna put these in these little baskets, the baskets goes into a second selection process where someone from our team Will go through and take anything out. That’s not qualitative

And then the fruit goes into the cellar and we’re gonna start pressing. That’s so meticulous. It’s a lot of work I presume this is gonna impact the yield and then the final cost of the wine because that’s a lot of Work already just for a harvest

So in our region, we’re making about one glass of wine per vine Relatively speaking. If you’re taking a red producer of the same quality you’re making an entire bottle Wow, that’s a really really good comparison. So one vine will give me one glass. That’s correct

It’s a little to work for a glass of wine It’s passion its devotion. It’s a lot of hard work all year long to ensure that the fruit is healthy at the time of harvest.