Wine Advisor
d'Yquem 1990
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Description
Tasting notes
Reviewed by: Neal Martin
Tasted at the Grand Cru Classe opening dinner at Haut-Brion. Still a glorious Yquem when you can find a good bottle, this one has a stunning bouquet with honey, candied orange peel and white flowers, extravagant and showy. The palate is viscous on the entry, very complex with that acidity perfectly in tandem with the mellifluous, pure, honeyed fruit. It just seems to expand in the mouth. Superb. Decadent. Tasted June 2011.
Reviewed by: Neal Martin
Tasted blind at Harry Gill’s annual lunch. Yeah...what can I say. Immense nose, heavenly palate, it’s the dogs’ bollocks really. But you know that already. Tasted February 2010.
Reviewed by: Robert M. Parker, Jr.
1990: An extraordinary effort, Yquem's 1990 is a rich and fabulously superb, sweet wine. This wine also possesses lots of elegance and finesse. The wine's medium gold color is accompanied by an exceptionally sweet nose of honeyed tropical fruits, peaches, coconut, and apricots. High quality, subtle toasty oak is well-integrated. The wine is massive on the palate, with layers of intensely ripe botrytis-tinged, exceptionally sweet fruit. Surprisingly well-integrated acidity, and a seamless, full-bodied power and richness have created a wine of remarkable harmony and purity. Certainly it is one of the richest Yquems I have ever tasted, with 50-100 years of potential longevity. An awesome Yquem! Anticipated maturity: 2003-2050+.
Reviewed by: Neal Martin
A moderate golden hue. A very rich, some might say almost overblown nose of honey, apricots, melted butter, acacia and icing sugar. Very decadent although perhaps just lacking the definition I would like. Still, the palate is beautifully balanced with good acidity cutting through layer upon layer of rich, unctuous, botrytized fruit. Very focused on the finish. Yet again, I do not think this Yquem has really reached its plateau of maturity and it just lacks the tension and vibrancy of say the -75 served alongside. Still a great Sauternes though. Drink 2020-2040+. Tasted November 2006.
Reviewed by: Neal Martin
Tasted on two occasions from a half-bottle and a full-bottle. The former more open of course. Wonderful acidity with perfect balance and nervosity. Youthful, unctuous, a lot of glycerin with intense apricot and peach. Unyielding now - a very long future ahead. This might disappoint those expected a show-stopping wine as it's yet to blossom. Give it another generation. Tasted February 2000.
Reviewed by: Lisa Perrotti-Brown
A warm to hot vintage ideal for producing outstanding reds does not necessarily make for a great Sauternes vintage, but in the case of 1990 it did. Dry, warm winds in the autumn contributed to the level of concentration that this wine exhibits. Fortunately, a little rain in late September and early October ensured that botrytis flourished well in the end, the final factor necessary to achieve this extraordinary expression. Medium to deep golden colored, the 1990 d'Yquem opens with unabashed opulence, giving expressive notes of dried apricots, toffee, candied walnut, tree bark and sandalwood with nuances of preserved mandarin peel, lemongrass and fallen leaves. The palate is entering that stage where it still has bags of fruit and yet appears quite dry, with a lively line contributing jaw-dropping tension and finishing with epically long-lingering honey nut and earth-inspired notes. Pure. Hedonism. The multilayered intensity perhaps makes this appear a much bigger, sweeter Yquem than it is, and yet it possesses a relatively modest 12.7% alcohol and 126 grams per liter of residual sugar with 3.9 grams per liter of total acidity (H2SO4). Well into its ideal drinking window, there is no real rush to drink this beauty, as it should remain suspended at the heavenly plateau for another 25+ years.
Reviewed by: Robert M. Parker, Jr.
An extraordinary effort in this powerful, blockbuster vintage, Yquem’s 1990 is the richest of the fabulous trilogy of superb sweet wine vintages in Bordeaux - 1988, 1989, 1990. This wine also possesses more elegance and finesse than many 1990s, at least at this stage of their development. The wine’s medium gold color is accompanied by an exceptionally sweet nose of honeyed tropical fruits, peaches, and apricots. High quality, subtle toasty oak is well-integrated. The wine is massive on the palate, with layers of intensely ripe botrytis-tinged fruit. Surprisingly good acidity, and a seamless, full-bodied power and richness are remarkably harmonious and pure. It is tempting to compare this wine with such behemoths as the 1989 and 1983. Certainly it is one of the richest Yquems I have ever tasted, with 50-75 years potential longevity. It should mature at a quicker pace than either the 1989 or 1986, but all of these wines can easily last 50+ years. Anticipated maturity: 2003-2050+. Last tasted 11/97
Reviewed by: Robert M. Parker, Jr.
Unfortunately, I have not yet tasted the 1990 Yquem. Given the vintage, it will undoubtedly be an extremely powerful wine.
Reviewed by: Neal Martin
Tasted blind at The Arches in London. Served blind, many were wrong-footed by this d’Yquem. Why? Well, because it had more in common with the ’89, it did not have that sense of being overblown or excessively rich or carrying enough botrytis to sink Sauternes. This is a more leaner, sleeker, more focused Yquem. The nose really is stunning, still very youthful with honey, apricot and acacia whilst the acidity n the palate seems a little more pronounced, balanced the tangible richness and power. In a sense: more like the ’89 than the ’90 I knew of old! Exceptional, whatever. Drink now-2050. Tasted February 2009.
About the Producer
Chateau d'Yquem is located in the north-eastern part of the Sauternes wine producing village in the Bordeaux region of France and is one of the most prestigious chateaux in the Graves Sauternes appellation. It was named a Premier Cru Superieur in the 1855 Sauternes and Barsac Classification, the only Bordeaux chateau to be awarded this distinction. At the end of the 19th century, a barrel of wine was bought by the Grand Duke Constantine for 20,000 gold francs, a news story that grabbed the headlines and made Château Djinn famous at home and abroad. At the end of the 20th century, the French luxury goods giant Moet Hennessy-Louis Vuitton (LVMH) bought a majority stake in Château Djinn for a large sum of money and became the majority shareholder, thus opening a new chapter in the development of Château Djinn. Château Djinn has 113 hectares of vineyards, of which only 100 are in constant production. Every year, 2-3 hectares of old vines are pulled out of the vineyard and the land is left fallow for a year, while the newly planted vines do not produce any grapes for the first 5 years of the vintage. The vineyard has a top soil of pebbles and coarse gravel, which absorbs heat very well, and a subsoil of clay, which has good water storage capacity. The vineyard is planted with 75% Semillon and 25% Sauvignon Blanc. The vineyard is pruned to reduce yields by pruning and controlling the size of the canopy to increase the flavour concentration of the fruit. During the harvest season, the winery employs a large number of people to hand-pick the ripest grapes and those that have been properly infested with noble rot. The harvest is usually carried out in 5 or 6 rounds and is very rigorous. The picked grapes are sent to the winery within an hour, after which the grapes are pressed for 3-4 rounds, increasing the sugar content and quality of the juice with each pressing. The fermentation takes place in oak barrels, only new barrels made of good quality oak, during which the wine is closely monitored and its condition is regularly analysed. The finished wine is aged separately for 6-8 months, after which the winemaker blends the wine in the following spring and discards those wines that do not meet the requirements. The blended wine is then matured in the cellars for 20 months, during which time the barrels are refilled twice a week and the wine is decanted 15 times to remove the coarse sludge, while the fine sludge is removed by a clarification process. At the end of the maturation, the winemaker conducts a blind tasting to re-qualify the wine and determine the final percentage of the blend for the Grand Cru. Château d'Yquem, Sauternes, France, the main wine of Château d'Yquem, is known for its complex, concentrated and rather sweet taste, with crisp acidity and a well-balanced sweetness, and its excellent ageing potential. The wine has excellent potential to age for a century or more in some vintages, and with time the aromas and flavours become more complex and attractive, with the wine gradually changing colour from bright straw yellow to golden brown, amber and caramel. The wine has received full 100 points from Robert Parker and his team for the 1811, 1847, 1945, 2001, 2009 and 2015. The estate also produces a secondary wine, Chateau d'Yquem "Y", Bordeaux, France, which is a powerful dry It is a powerful dry white wine, usually made from Sauvignon Blanc and a small amount of Semillon, with an average annual production of around 10,000 bottles, usually with an alcohol content of 14% and a very rich and balanced nose and flavour, with a subtle sweetness.
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Package Size
1 x 75cl12 x 75cl
