Going through my cellar the other day, I noticed, in my possession, a rare and mysterious bottle of “ 1982 Chateau St. Jean, Sauvignon d’Or, Select Late Harvest, Sonoma Valley, 35.3 Brix “ dessert wine.
At 35.3 Brix, this wine has more residual sugar than a Canadian Icewine, German Beerenauslese or French Sauternes wine!..colour is as dark as my 1975 Chateau D’Yquem!
Communication between the winery and myself regarding this wine’s current pricing, rating, drinkability, tasting notes…etc resulted in the following response from the owner/winemaker….”I can’t find anything in our record about this wine! “
Most weird and interesting?!! Anyone, by chance, came across a similar wine and would like to share information?
Are you familiar with a forum site called Wineberserkers? A small number of HO posters seem to know it. The people who post there are extremely knowledgeable and someone there might know something, although the fact that the winery itself has no info is problematic. Might be because it’s had a couple of ownership changes.
It’s from the very early years of the winery’s production. If you like I could copy your pics and post there to see if anyone knows anything about it.
So…… should I assume that means you will be going to that forum and don’t need me to post for you? If you should go you’ll need to sign up and the best place to post this there would be Wine Talk. It’s also on Discourse.
While I do not think I had this wine, I was a major collector of the various select harvest wines of Chateau St Jean. My guess is this will be brown and caramely, somewhere between a curiosity and a sublime experience. Even among a particular bottling, the variations bottle to bottle will dominate any other assessment.
Try it with some blue cheese, duck liver, rich pate etc
