Blend: 80% Sémillon, 20% Sauvignon Blanc
From: Bordeaux, France
Critical Acclaim: JD 90 Jeb Dunnuck
Based mostly on Semillon, with 20% Sauvignon, the 2019 Château Peyrat Blanc reveals a slightly deeper gold hue as well as impressive notes of ripe melon, honeyed quince, and toasted spice to go with a medium-bodied, rich, fleshy, nicely textured style on the palate. It's geared for the dinner table and should keep for 3-4 years, probably longer. Best After 2022
Taste: Straw and green reflections with a mineral nose and a beautifully balanced palate. Sémillon announces its presence in the wine’s bold flavors of toasted almond, yellow flowers, quince, and mango.
Pairing: This wine would work well with oysters, clams, sashimi, or any white meat cooked in a cream-based sauce. This dry wine's rich, mineral body would pair beautifully with Julia Childs’ recipe for Moules à la Marinière, or fresh mussels steamed open in wine and flavorings from Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Serve with your favorite french fries…we love the ones from Gainsbourg if you are close enough to pick them up hot.
This wine. "Peyrat" is the name of the lieu-dit where the winery is located. It means "pierre" or stone in the old local dialect of patois. The vineyards are planted on a bedrock of limestone with sand and clay. Located in Cérons, in the heart of the Graves AOP, Château Peyrat is a 42 acre "clos" currently planted to 20 acres of white varieties and 18.5 acres of red. The estate’s microclimate, its proximity to the Garonne River, and the way its sandy, clay soils rest on a limestone bedrock allow its wines to display a minerality, freshness and finesse typical of the Graves terroir.
About. Some of the first documentation of viticulture in the greater Bordeaux region dates as far back as the 4th century, but as far as we know vineyards were not planted in Graves, which lies on the southwestern end of Bordeaux, until the 12th century as a result of growing European appetites for wine expidited by trade through the new port of La Rochelle nearby. Today, Graves is Bordeaux’s only region known for both its red and dry white wines.
The Château Peyrat estate was founded in 1937 and is located along the historic roadway, Route des Graves, in the commune of Cérons. Historically Cérons has produced sweet wines using mainly Sémillon and Sauvignon Blanc infected with noble rot. However, these wines were so often overshadowed by wines made in the same style from Sauternes and Barsac just to its south that the region has made moves to make greater proportions of red and dry white wines (like this one) under the Graves AOP.
