A Sweet Spot Vintage: 2023 Sauternes
2023 Sauternes: Great Bordeaux at Accessible Prices
2021 Sauternes was a vintage of brightness, precision, and complexity, while 2022 brought remarkable depth and richness. 2023 somehow borrows the best from both. It has the concentration and scale of 2022, but with the freshness and energy that made 2021 so compelling. The result is a magical combination that will be fascinating to compare with its predecessors, but perhaps deserves to be thought about on its own for the heights it reaches. It is something of a Goldilocks vintage—rich but not heavy, fresh but not austere, powerful and beautifully balanced. For a Sauternes lover, there is very little left to ask for.
That said, I think the conversation around Sauternes has become so one-dimensional that the wonder of these wines can be all too easy to miss. I would urge collectors of all stripes not to overlook wines like these two. They aren't merely among the best wines of their appellation; they are rivals for the best wines of the entire vintage. And for those who make room for them in the cellar, Sauternes offers something increasingly rare in fine wine: some of the world's greatest, most complex, and longest-lived wines at prices that still make them genuinely accessible.
2023 Coutet, Sauternes (375ml) $29.99 98RP 97DC 97JS 97WS 96JA 95TWP is a perfect example. This historic First Growth of Barsac has been owned by the Baly family since 1977 and for more than three decades has benefited from a close technical and commercial partnership with the team at Baron Philippe de Rothschild. It is a remarkable combination: one of Barsac's great limestone terroirs, a property with centuries of history, and the caliber of expertise associated with Mouton-Rothschild. In 2023, everything came together. Coutet has always had a wonderful natural freshness and cut that separates it from richer expressions of Sauternes, and in a vintage that married concentration with exceptional energy, that house style found an ideal canvas. This is a stunning Coutet and another reminder of just how much classified Bordeaux pedigree can still be purchased here.
And then there is 2023 Suduiraut, Sauternes (375ml) $44.99 100VN 97-100CK 99JD 99TWP 98RP 97DC 96WS, a property that seems incapable of putting a foot wrong right now. Under the ownership of AXA Millésimes, alongside Pichon Baron, the estate has been on an extraordinary run, and 2023 may represent a new high point. This is a 100-point wine from Vinous, with 99 points from Jeb Dunnuck and 98+ from Wine Advocate—the kind of critical consensus usually associated with the very summit of the appellation. More importantly, it has the stature to justify it: immense concentration and richness wrapped around the freshness and precision that define the vintage. This isn't simply a great Suduiraut; it belongs in the conversation with the all-time wines of this legendary estate and with the very best wines made anywhere in Bordeaux in 2023.
Great Bordeaux, Full Stop
These are not wines I would think about simply as dessert wines, nor as something to tuck into a corner of the cellar for a distant occasion. They are great Bordeaux, full stop. In a region where the cost of the greatest wines has moved increasingly out of reach, Sauternes remains one of the wonderful anomalies: extraordinary terroir, obsessive production, decades of longevity, and some of the most profound wines in the world, still available at prices that almost don't make sense. 2023 is exactly the kind of vintage that reminds us what we have been overlooking.