Valentines Day Chateau D'Yquem Wine Tasting

Wine makes every meal an occasion, every table more elegant, every day more civilized.
- Andre Simon

And I am trying to have at least 8-10 different wines every night with my dinner at the Wine Bar! 

Our Chateau D’Yquem tasting has become an annual event on Valentine’s Day!  This year we are going all the way back to the 1976 vintage including great vintages like; 1983, 1989, 2011 and more.  We have some incredible vintages on the table this evening and the price of admission includes a five-course tasting menu!!

The wines of Sauternes and the neighboring district of Barsac were, up until recently, called the "dinosaurs of Bordeaux."  This reference to the majestical creatures that once roamed and ruled the earth is somehow appropriate.  These luscious, decadently rich sweet wines are the world's most exotic and at one time were the world's most expensive and most desired.  After the Second World War, staggering costs and slackening demand threatened the vignerons with extinction of the prized nectar.  Then in the 1980's the pendulum at last begun to swing the other way; and beginning with the great 1983 vintage (the best since 1976 and 1967), there was a renewed interest and demand for this great wine.  This has sparked an unfortunate increase in prices, -The Wine Spectator reported in the fall of 1990 that wine merchants and collectors were lining up to pay as much as $230 a bottle for the first release of the 1986 Château d'Yquem.  The auction market for these wines also began to heat up - older, prized vintages of Château d'Yquem began to double in price.  In 2016 at Hedonism the exclusive Mayfair fine wine merchant, sold a rare 1811 Château d'Yquem (from the famed comet vintage) sold for an astronomical £78,105 in 2016 which is over $100,000 dollars!! 

The fame of Sauternes reaches back at least to the time when Thomas Jefferson visited the area in 1785 and ordered a few cases of Château d'Yquem - in Jefferson's day d'Yquem was also the region's non-pareil Château.  When the great wines of Bordeaux were classified seventy years later, d'Yquem was so highly regarded that it was accorded the unique status of Grand Premier Cru - a higher classification than the great Médoc clarets like Lafite and Latour etc.  It is a little-known fact that the wine Jefferson ordered was quite dry; in fact the first sweet wine from this district was not made until the 1847 harvest at d'Yquem.  However, it did not take long for these wines to achieve fame, for in that era sweet wines (Champagne was a sweet beverage then) were very fashionable.  D'Yquem's first sweet wine vintage gained tremendous notoriety when the Grand Duke Constantine of Russia paid the then staggering price of 20,000 gold francs for four barrels; ever since it has been one of the most expensive wines of the world.

The process by which these great wines come about is fascinating and one of the examples of how nature can play topsy-turvy tricks and make decay a very beneficial rather than a harmful phenomenon.  In the fall, under certain conditions, (misty mornings and sunny afternoons) a mold forms on the skin of the exceedingly ripe grapes that are left on the vines.  The mold's technical term is botrytis cinerea; the vignerons refer to it as the "noble mold".  It often envelopes a grape and feeds on it by sending spike-like tentacles through the skin.  It rapidly shrivels the grapes and leaves their skins mere pulp.  The remaining juice is extremely sweet, concentrated, and packed with glycerin.  The particular conditions for serious onset of the "noble mold" occur only several times in a decade; and often the mold attacks unevenly, so the vines have to be picked over several times.  (Picking is done as many as thirteen times at d'Yquem!)  Sometimes growers lose patience and pick before the mold takes hold (for fear of a rain-out); the resulting wine is sweet, but it does not have that concentration that results from the shrinkage of the grapes from the mold.  The great difficulty and expense of producing these wines in tandem with a great lack of demand after the Second World War discouraged many proprietors; during the post war period, d'Yquem stood almost alone in maintaining the great standards of the past.

Join us as we experience this great Sauternes back to the 1976 vintage!   Chef Toni will be making a special five-course tasting menu to accompany the tasting wines.  The fee for this tasting which includes dinner is $495 + tax, for reservations call 954-523-9463 or e-mail andy@winewatch.com.

Valentines Day Chateau D'Yquem Wine Tasting

Saturday, February 14, 2026

7:30 PM

1976 Chateau D’Yquem Sauternes

1980 Chateau D’Yquem Sauternes

1983 Chateau D’Yquem Sauternes

1989 Chateau D’Yquem Sauternes

2011 Chateau D’Yquem Sauternes

2013 Chateau D’Yquem Sauternes

2014 Chateau D’Yquem Sauternes

2016 Chateau D’Yquem Sauternes

2018 Chateau D’Yquem Sauternes

2021 Chateau D’Yquem Sauternes

Menu

Gorgonzola, Shopshire Blue and Danish Blue

Foie Gras Torchon with Sauternes/Citrus jelly

Evil Jungle Sea Scallop Stir Fry with Coconut Ginger Curry Sauce

Tuna Poke with Coconut, Honey, Lime and Jalapeno

Crispy Pork Belly with orange marmalade BBQ and Creamy Florida Grits

Coconut Creme Pie with White Chocolate Shavings and Dark Chocolate Sauce

The fee for this tasting which includes dinner is $495 + tax per person.  To make a reservation call 954-523-9463 or e-mail andy@winewatch.com.  Please let us know when you make your reservation if you have any dietary restrictions or allergies and chef’s Toni and Dani will be happy to accommodate you.