2011 Chateau Rieussec Premier Cru Classe, Sauternes

This is a fabulous Sauternes with dried peaches, pineapples and mango. Apricots and hints of spices. Even jam. Full-bodied, medium sweet with intense and powerful palate. This wine has 147 grams of residual sugar. So balanced and long. We will see what is better -- Rieussec or Yquem?

– jamessuckling.com, February 2014

The 2011 Rieussec has a lifted patisserie, almond-scented bouquet, touches of wild peach coming through with aeration. The palate is well balanced with a very unctuous entry, powerful and intense, almost heady in style with a persistent finish that coats the mouth. What a fabulous Sauternes. Tasted blind at the annual 10-Year-On tasting.

Intense, with ginger, yellow apple chutney, dried pineapple and papaya flavors coursing through a finish that brims with singed almond and lemon chiffon flavors. This retains a touch of youthful rawness, featuring a bitter orange note that's yet to be absorbed. No need to rush or worry here. Best from 2018 through 2040. 6,000 cases made.

– James Molesworth (WineSpectator.com, Web only 2015)

Gently oaky but with a lovely fresh fruit presence to smell; rich, lively, middleweight wine of more modest proportions than usual for Rieussec; very sweet, long and racy to taste, with a delicious freshness of fruit, classy, elegant and subtle; neither big nor powerful, but wonderfully light on its feet, and with very fine, gently spicy aromatic length. A very even and complete performance, a discreet, classy, understated aristocrat. Irresistible already. [M.Schuster, Bordeaux Mar/Apr 2012]

Dense and spicy, and a sense of richness, opens to a real aromatic intensity. Very rich and spicy and intense. Big, powerful and still zesty – great concentration and impressive. (JH)

Dense and spicy, and a sense of richness, opens to a real aromatic intensity. Very rich and spicy and intense. Big, powerful and still zesty – great concentration and impressive.

– jancisrobinson.com, Jan 2015