Château Suduiraut

Named for the first time in 1580, on the occasion of the marriage between Nicole d’Allard and Léonard de Suduiraut, the Château Suduiraut is the historic home of Sauternes and the cellar where the technique of this precious sweet wine has been refined over the years. to a level that borders on perfection.
Classified as Premier Cru of Gironde in 1855, Château Suduiraut, for a certain period renamed Cru du Roy, has carried on the tradition of Sauternes and also of dry white wine from the same grapes not affected by noble rot.
Consisting today of 91 hectares of land, the estate governs its vineyards on mixed soils where gravel and sand alternate with clay. It is a very lean and draining soil, which naturally induces limited yields and forces the vine to draw its nourishment in depth, concentrating the berries. Beyond the ground, the vines are already in competition with each other due to a high density per hectare (7,000 plants) and their high vigor, considering the average age of 35 years.
Sémillon and Sauvignon Blanc are the main grapes at Château Suduiraut, with the first covering almost the entire extension (90%) and fully exploiting its aromatic characteristics combined with the development of botrytis cinerea, while Sauvignon, when vinified as a sweet wine, brings acidity and grants freshness and aromatic complexity, as well as longevity to the blend.
The geographical position of Château Suduiraut guarantees ideal conditions for the development of noble rot, thanks to cool nights, morning fogs and sunshine in the middle of the day. The random and unpredictable development of noble rot on the individual grapes makes the selection of the berries complex and expensive, forcing more harvests to be carried out to keep the overriping on the plant under control.
Once in the cellar, the production process takes place in a very delicate and slow way, in order to extract the richest juices before vinification and the consequent multi-year aging in oak barrels prior to the rigorous selection of the lots that will take part to the final assembly, bottling the Grand Vin only in vintages in which the quality of the grapes is at the height of its fame.
There are few château in the Sauternes area capable of boasting a centuries-old history and a reputation equal to Château Suduiraut: the greatness of Sauternes in the world is also due to the work of this winery which over the centuries has known how to enhance with elegance the magic of botrytis cinerea.