Chateau Haut-Bommes (French), hailing from the appellation Sauternes south of Bordeaux city – we brought this bottle back from France as a gift for our friend Paul. Opened this evening, unfortunately following a Semillon Botrytis!
Light straw coloured, very light but pungent bouquet – a perfumed scent with hints of honey. Very light body with a rather more intense follow through. Tastes of light citrus and (again) a light honey flavour with a slightly elevated acidity which slightly hits the mouth.
Followed by more of the Lovedale (Hunter Valley, New South Wales) gem, Tatler, and their consistently winning Semillon Botrytis simply called “The Sticky”. The beautiful dark gold colour is offset by a very subtle bouquet, the wine is a fruit sensation. Paul labelled it as so: “sweet, but not sickly.. but sweet enough to not appear watery or lack intensity”.
AWG heartily agrees! The Tatler ‘The Sticky’ Semillon Botrytis is certainly a winning combination of geography and craftsmanship. It does evoke a sense of ice wine-like qualities in terms of the depth of fruit and layers of flavour. If you enjoy a sweet wine which has strong fruit overtones, you may well enjoy a bottle (or more).
