2012 White Bordeaux

Tasted blind at the Southwold 2012 tasting. The 2012 Château La Louvière Blanc has a feisty and attractive bouquet: lemon curd, citrus fruit and beeswax scents all leaping from the glass. The palate is very well balanced with decent weight, though it does not deliver the same complexity as the aromatics. The acidity is well judged and there are attractive ginger and grilled walnut notes. I would leave this another year and see if it can evolve more nuances in bottle, but I was pleased to see this gaining substance since I last tasted it in barrel.
Neal Martin - The Wine Advocate, 28th Oct 2016

Rich, concentrated Barsac with a high level of residual sugar (145 gm/l) and honey, dried mango notes. Fairly dense, layered flavours with a full-bodied palate. Two samples tasted: one was fresh and lifted while the other was dull and heavy.
Jeannie Cho Lee MW, Decanter, April 2013

Wonderfully fresh and zesty on the nose, with hints of elderflower and peaches. Lemon and grapefruit on the palate, with the finest touch of honeyed ripeness from the acacia barrels. The palate has enough weight to cope with food, but it never feels heavy. The acidity on the finish is finely balanced and refreshing.
Philip Moulin - Wine Buyer

Couloumey Blanc is one of the rarest wines in Bordeaux –it is usually kept by the owner for friends and family. Fermentation is in stainless steel, but unusually the wine is left in old acacia wood barrels for six to nine months. The very tight grain means that oxidation is kept to a minimum, while complexity is gained from lees contact.

A quiet nose at the start is misleading, as in the glass this opens up magnificently for a wine so young: a dense wave of white flowers, citrus, fine smoke and lanolin. The palate shows the unique terroir of Sauternes, often so shrouded by sugar, this is quite unlike any white Bordeaux I’ve tasted before, with sweet musk, white fruits and flowers, with a dense flavour of honeysuckle, supported by very well integrated acidity, which sweeps into a vivid and lively finish. Excellent now and given the age-ability of Sauvignon, will only get better over the next 10-15 years. 
Fine Wine Team

A dry and zippy white Bordeaux full of pure pineapple freshness on the nose with layers upon layers of lemon and chamomile scents. As soon as you take a sip, there is a lively attack and lots of fleshy Sauvignon character, gently supported by sweet spice from the oak. The acidity keeps this wine beautifully balanced and although it is deliciously fresh now, it will get better and better until 2028 or so. 
Laura Atkinson, Fine Wine Team Dry white Bordeaux is one of the greatest food-matching wines in the world. When produced by a chateau as great as D’Yquem, it has to be tried. In the 1855 Classification, Ch. d’Yquem was the only chateau to be given the top ranking of Premier Cru Supérieur. Its unsurpassed concentration, complexity and longevity has meant that it has always commanded high prices and huge demand.

The estate traces its history to the early 18th century, when Thomas Jefferson notably visited the estate in 1787 and ordered 250 bottles of the 1784 vintage for himself. It is unlikely that the wines at the time were as lusciously sweet as the method for creating sweet wines through botrytis infected grapes had not been developed. In time it became famous for producing probably the greatest sweet wine in the world, however the estate has produced a limited number of dry wines since 1959.

A powerful wine, with an inverse blend to the sweet wine, the dry ‘Y’ or ‘Ygrec’ is made with 80% Sauvignon Blanc and 20% Semillon. A tiny amount of botrytis is allowed on the Semillon giving an extraordinary depth to the wines. Ygrec is made with the same uncompromising quest for quality as their sweet and is one of the most impressive dry whites to come out of Bordeaux in years.

There is a qualitative similarity between 2012 and 2011 for the dry white wines of the Graves, high praise indeed given the undoubted quality of the latter. However the summer of 2012 was hotter and drier, giving what Remi Edange at Domaine de Chevalier called a "pulpeux" quality to the wines. That is to say a fleshy and juicy character. This 2012 white is very impressive with a bright firm fruit showing citrus and stoney flavours in equal measure. As usual as 70/30 blend of Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon, this is sure to be an outstanding wine once it has finished its maturation in oak.
Mark Pardoe MW, Wine Buying Director

Rigorous selection resulted in just a third of the harvest becoming Pavillon Blanc in 2012, as just the oldest and best vineyard plots achieved the necessary levels of high quality this great estate demands. Aromatic, with a sweet lemony nose and mineral complexity, it is fresh and nicely balanced with pleasing grapefruit notes on the finish.