Château DE FARGUES 1997
Château de Fargues is located in the village of Fargues de Langon, in the Sauternes de Bordeaux appellation. The Lur Saluces family, owners of the estate since 1472, enjoyed a particular wine reputation in the 18th and 19th centuries when their portfolio of châteaux included Château d'Yquem, the only estate to have obtained Premier Cru Supérieur status in Sauternes. The Lur Saluces family sold Yquem in 1999, and to this day Château de Fargues is often referred to as Yquem junior. The estate's vineyard was originally planted with a combination of red and white grape varieties. In the 1930s, Bertrand de Lur Saluces, Alexandre's uncle, current owner of Château de Fargues, decided to abandon the cultivation of red vines to devote himself exclusively to the production of a Grand Vin de Sauternes. He undertook slow and costly work to completely replant the Fargues plot. The first vintage of Château de Fargues was produced in 1943 from vines averaging 12 years old, and was released to the market in 1964. Today, Château de Fargues comprises 17 hectares of vines planted with Sémillon and Sauvignon White.
The grapes are pressed and fermented in oak barrels , 25 to 30% of which are new. Individual batches divided by the day of picking are aged separately for approximately 3 years. Withdrawal takes place 4 times over a period of 12 months. Château de Fargues is only produced in excellent vintages. The 1997 vintage for Sauternes and Barsac was excellent . The spring was warm but saw frost which caused damage. A hot and humid August gave way to a dry September at the start of the harvest. Grapes picked earlier in the harvest tended to be ripe and juicy but unaffected by botrytis. October saw the first cases of noble rot and it was the areas that picked later that reaped the rich rewards that botrytis can bring.
Grape varieties: Sémillon, Sauvignon Blanc