Chateau Coutet 2010

Offers a bright inner core of honeysuckle, pineapple, star fruit and white peach flavors, coated for now with heather honey, marzipan and mango notes. Fresh and racy through the finish, this is an elegant beauty, showing terrific cut and precision. Best from 2015 through 2030. 3,166 cases made.

93-95 Powerfully rich wine, very concentrated, rich, with a great balance between acidity and honey and apricot flavors. Finely rich.

A sweet wine with honey and sliced apple character with lemon. Full body, medium sweet and a bright finish. It's layered and fascinating. So much spicy, botrytis and dried mushroom powder. Turns creamy. Drink or hold.

The 2010 Coutet demanded some coaxing like the 2009, eventually offering sensual aromas of honeysuckle, jasmine and quince, although I feel the 2009 has a greater presence. The palate is medium-bodied with crisp acidity, fresh and focused with commendable weight. There is a deft touch of spice here and superb tension on the finish - a quintessential Coutet. Tasted from an ex-château bottle served at the estate.

Even though this is a baby, it's easy to see this is a beauty that serves up the perfect amount of ripe and over ripe, tropical fruit, honey, vanilla, orange peel and apricot on the showy nose. Sweet, rich and balancing fresh with intense, this is very good now. This is going to be even better in a decade once all the beautiful caramel and other secondary notes come into play.

Medium yellow-green. Yellow tropical fruit underpinned by fine herbal savouriness, a touch of orange and delicate red berry. Powerful and mineral, with ripe banana, a subtle hint of oak and salty minerality; it shows good length, with a sweet tangerine note on the finish—quite multi-faceted and persistent. It is powerful and long, with definite ageing potential.

Very fine nose, elegant with notes of orange blossom, honey, stone fruits and well integrated oak; excellent structure, volume and richness, good freshness and complexity, really long, lingering and harmonious finish; very good and potent.

Quite an intense yellow. Fascinating, vibrant botrytis, yellow fruit, greengages and freshly picked chamomile. Plenty of aromatic intensity on the lusciously sweet palate, with fine acidity and a well-knit finish: a very creamy Coutet.

Medium-deep yellow, therefore quite intense, with a bright rim. Fascinating, lively botrytis, plenty of yellow fruit, greengages and freshly picked chamomile. Lots of aromatic intensity on the fully sweet palate, yet with enough fine acidity to balance it out, leading to a well-knit finish. A very creamy Coutet.

Fresh, mineral, powerful bouquet with notes of dried apricot, candied honey and slate. Velvety, opulent, creamy palate with generous sweetness, a full-bodied structure, restrained acidity, intense aromatics and a very long, rich finish. Can still improve. 18/20 2018 - 2040

With its straw-yellow color, the nose is marked by candied fruit. On the palate, the attack is broad, followed by a generous mid-palate with plenty of volume; the finish is slightly bitter for the moment, yet the overall impression is one of great richness. Elegance will come with time. The balance comes from 14% alcohol and 156 g/L residual sugar.

Yellow-green color. An intense, refined, fruity nose with the lovely lime note so typical of Barsac. The palate is airy, melting, rich and powerful, with an ultra-light texture. Juicy, the wine develops vanilla notes and is impossible to spit out. pH: 3.7, residual sugar: 160 g/L.

The Chateau Coutet 2010 was a beauty from barrel with its payload of 154gms of residual sugar and sure enough, after a year in bottle it is one of the most compelling sweet wines in the vintage. It shows immense clarity on the nose, with the oak still a little prominent at the moment, but it will integrate with bottle age. The palate is well-balanced with a fine line of acidity. There is an engaging sense of tension here, real drive and mineralite towards the finish, like a cousin of Doisy-Daene but with a little more bravura. There is a sense of purpose about this 2010 Sauternes, with a persistent finish that keeps you coming back for more. Bravo! Drink now-2030+.