Description
Find this Château d’Yquem 1921 price at Arden Fine Wines.
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Château d’Yquem 1921 price
Many outstanding vintages of this supreme sweet white wine exist, but none in the 20th century is better than the 1921.
Yquem planted 100ha (hectares) in 1921, compared to 113ha today.
Back then, the château bottled only a small amount of wine.
But Marquis Bertrand de Lur-Saluces, the owner at the time, led the push for château bottling as a guarantee of authenticity.
From the 1924 vintage, the château bottled all the wine.
During the First World War, Marquis Bertrand de Lur-Saluces served as an officer, following family tradition.
He took the reins at Yquem at age 30.
He presided over the château for more than 50 years until his death in 1968, when his nephew Alexandre de Lur Saluces succeeded him.
The 1921 Château d’Yquem vintage
1921 became the driest of 75 vintages on record and the hottest since 1893.
The unusual heat and early autumn made it difficult for red Bordeaux but perfect for Sauternes.
The small cask-fermentations of very rich Sauternes musts were not susceptible to such heatwaves.
Also, the harvesting was usually later.
For the first time since 1893, pickers began as early as the first half of September, on the 13th.
The harvest lasted six and a half weeks, with 39 days of picking.
By the time it ended on 27 October, pickers had passed through the vineyard five times.
Yields remained low, as sharp spring frosts reduced the crop.
The extreme dry conditions led to unparalleled richness and concentration of the grape juice.
Its exceptional quality certainly received recognition from the outset.
As 1921 saw the hottest summer since the phenomenal vintage of 1893, which also produced outstanding sweet wines across Europe, the grapes reached unusually high sugar levels.
This resulted in both high residual sugar (112 grams per litre) and high alcohol (12.5%), yet the wine remained balanced.
How does Yquem 1921 taste?
Michael Broadbent, in his Vintage Wine, recalls drinking the wine on more than 30 occasions. He describes the colour as quite dark, “at best a warm amber-gold”, and the bouquet as “very rich, honeyed of course, peachy, barley sugar (boiled and spun sugar), intense yet fragrant, custard cream, crème brûlée yet again, but very true”.
On the palate: “from sweet to very sweet, depending, I think, on context, unquestionably rich, powerful, even assertive, great length and intensity, and supported by life-preserving acidity. One of life’s sublime experiences.”
Bordeaux authority David Peppercorn MW concurs: “It is more like an essence than a wine, a unique experience.”
For US critic Robert Parker, he rates this as a 100-point vintage of Yquem.
Legendary wine writer Edmund Penning- Rowsell drank the wine in 1983, remarking that: “It had something of the richness of a fine old sweet Sherry without the alcoholic strength. Amazingly concentrated, perhaps the chief quality of this wine, it remained almost surprisingly drinkable.”
