Wine Alert: Castelnau de Suduiraut (Sauternes) 1995

I sit here in the cool darkness of a 2007 summer night of uncertain vintage and odd provenance. It is almost a full twelve years since the making of this bottle. To open, or not? That is the question. The wines of the Suduiraut estate are known to be better in odd years, and my well-preserved bottle of this second-level wine is certainly from one of the better years.

I open it. It is a golden liquid with a secretive air to it, like many of its compatriots. I have only ever tasted the Chateau d'Yquem once, and it was worth the blinding sense of loss thereafter. But that wine is the superior vintage of the entire region, and poor fellows such as I must content ourselves with something a lot less expensive.

A chill runs through my head. Acacia honey, and perhaps the taste of a forgotten summer 12 years ago. The scent of a forgotten lady. A forgotten tune, a forgotten remedy for the ills of man, a forgotten book lying on a forgotten seat. What is it that I scent, what the taste upon my hind-tongue?

Is this wine old before its time, or still too young? I cannot tell. It is something which intrigues me. Did these grapes fall victim to the sudden scourge of chaos? There is metal here, a mineral backbone to the flowers and the fruit. I see the last grape fall, I see a distant garden in far Bordeaux. The metal is gold. So is the wine.

Sunset comes, and yet it was moonrise when I first set knife to bottle. What have I been drinking? Which pagan esprit de terroir awoke and smirked and turned back over into sleep? I do not know. I will drink it again on another night.