(Manfred Klimek)
In viticulture, there are disasters caused by climate, weather, pests and politics: frost, hail, phylloxera, war. And then there are declines that unfold almost silently. No one protests against them, no one writes manifestos, no one chains themselves to wine barrels. The bottles simply remain where they are. A little longer each year. Until it eventually becomes clear that it is not merely a market that is shrinking, but an entire cultural practice that is disappearing.
This is precisely what is happening at present with the great sweet wines of Sauternes.
These are the wines which, alongside Tokaj, have for centuries been among the most precious produce of European viticulture. Liquid gold, revered by kings, collected by tsars, described by writers and treated like liturgical objects by wealthy citizens. Today, mature bottles of these wines can sometimes be found at prices that seem almost absurd in relation to their quality – like a joke. And Château Yquem has barely benefited from the price race of the last thirty years. The old clientele is dying out, whilst the new generation has absolutely no interest in wines from Sauternes. Anyone browsing at the Alpina wine merchant, for example, will often find old vintages of great Sauternes wines cheaper than mediocre young wines from fashionable natural wine regions.
And yet hardly anyone buys them.
This is particularly tragic in the case of estates such as Château Suduiraut or Château Doisy-Daëne. For decades, Suduiraut has been one of the world’s leading producers of sweet wine: monumental, complex, almost immortal. A wine that can easily age for over fifty years without showing even the slightest hint of fatigue. Doisy-Daëne, on the other hand, possesses that aristocratic elegance that used to be called ‘upper class’, without irony and without shame. Less powerful than Suduiraut, but often more moving. Wines brimming with saffron, candied citrus, apricot, honey, smoke and that almost indescribable shimmer that only the noble rot Botrytis can produce.
For the truth is brutal: these great sweet wines now sell only in quantities that are barely sufficient to sustain the economic reality of modern top-tier estates. The consequences have long been evident. More and more châteaux in Sauternes are drastically reducing their sweet wine production or are also producing dry white wines. Some of these are outstanding. Suduiraut, for example, now produces remarkably precise dry Bordeaux blancs. Yet the strategic rationale behind this is obvious: they are trying to survive.
For the sweet wines are piling up like lead.
The reasons for this are surprisingly difficult to pinpoint exactly. Certainly, the world eats and drinks differently today. Lighter meals, fewer lavish banquets, less opulent desserts. The ritual of drinking sweet wine after a meal has all but disappeared. Added to this is the current trend towards alcohol caution, in which even a single glass of wine is subject to moral debate, let alone a concentrated Sauternes, often with 14 per cent alcohol.
But that only partly explains the decline.
For, at the same time, sugar continues to boom spectacularly in almost every other area of consumption. Soft drinks, patisserie, ice cream, bubble tea and energy drinks are not struggling to survive. The problem therefore seems to lie less with the sugar itself than with the cultural perception of these wines. To many young consumers, Sauternes seems like a drink from a bygone era – a world of silver spoons, hunting parties and heavy curtains.
Yet these wines were never merely sweet. Great Sauternes balance their sweetness with acidity, bitterness, spice and an almost piercing freshness. Technically speaking, they are among the most complex wines of all. Their production is highly risky. Botrytis only develops under very specific climatic conditions. The grapes are often harvested by hand in several passes, with each berry selected individually. The yield is minimal, and the risk of total loss is enormous.
The outlook in Tokaj is now looking bleak too. For years, attempts were made there to establish dry wines as the model for the future, as the classic Aszú wines were becoming increasingly difficult to sell. This was partly successful. Yet even there, it is now becoming apparent that the centuries-old tradition of great sweet wines is no longer a reliable source of income.
What we are currently witnessing is therefore perhaps more than a mere shift in taste. It is the slow farewell to a European notion of luxury that has been taken for granted for centuries: that patience, complexity, ageing potential and abundance represent cultural values in their own right.
The sweet wines from Sauternes or Tokaj no longer quite fit into an era of constant acceleration. They demand tranquillity. Attention. Slowness. These wines will probably never disappear entirely. Their history is too rich, their style too unique. But they could become something that seemed unthinkable just a few decades ago: a small, almost archaeological fringe culture within the wider world of viticulture.
And that would be a loss, extending far beyond Bordeaux and Hungary.