FLOAT 100 · Wine · No. 45
Chateau d'Yquem 2009
The only Sauternes ranked above first growth had one of the biggest harvests in its long history in 2009, and critics who tasted it from barrel compared it to the legendary 1893.
- Maker
- Chateau d'Yquem
- By price in wine
- 50 of 100
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Create a free account- Estate
- Chateau d'Yquem, Sauternes, Bordeaux; owned by LVMH
- Classification
- Premier Cru Superieur, the only Sauternes given that rank in the 1855 classification
- Grapes
- About 80% Semillon and 20% Sauvignon Blanc
- Residual sugar
- 155 grams per liter, per two critics (one other note gives 137)
- Harvest
- Picking finished October 19, 2009
- Production
- 10,000 cases per Wine Spectator; 160,000 bottles projected by one Swiss critic tasting from barrel
- Cellar master
- Sandrine Garbay, maitre de chai from 1998
- Estate director
- Pierre Lurton, in charge since 2004
- Perfect scores
- 100 from Neal Martin (Wine Advocate, 2014) and Lisa Perrotti-Brown
Four centuries on one hill
Yquem's story is usually told from 1593, when a local nobleman, Jacques de Sauvage, took the 'House of Yquem' from the French crown, by exchange of land according to one account and by lease according to another. Vines came later. The estate has been a vineyard since at least 1711, when Leon de Sauvage d'Yquem became its full owner.
In 1785 Francoise-Josephine de Sauvage d'Yquem married Count Louis-Amedee de Lur-Saluces, a godson of Louis XV. He died about three years later, killed in a riding accident by one account, and his widow, still in her early twenties, ran the estate herself and built its name beyond France. When she died in 1851 she left it to her grandson Romain-Bertrand de Lur-Saluces. Four years later, in the 1855 classification of Bordeaux, Yquem alone among the sweet wines of Sauternes was ranked Premier Cru Superieur, a superior first growth.
Around the same time the family laid about 60 miles of drainage pipe under some 80% of the vineyard, which one writer calls the most significant change to the property's land in its history. Thomas Jefferson, visiting as American minister to France in the 1780s, called it the best white wine of France and ordered 250 bottles of the 1784 for himself, according to one widely repeated account.
One grape at a time
Yquem is made from grapes attacked by noble rot, Botrytis cinerea, a fungus that shrivels the berries and concentrates their sugar and acid. The estate sits on a hill, and the air movement there helps the botrytis arrive quickly and evenly. Pickers pass through the vineyard several times, on average six, taking only the botrytized grapes. Yields average about nine hectoliters per hectare, against 12 to 20 elsewhere in Sauternes.
The estate covers about 126 hectares in the Sauternes appellation by one count and 113 hectares of vines by another, with about 100 in production at any time; a few hectares are pulled up each year and left fallow before replanting. The vines are about 80% Semillon and 20% Sauvignon Blanc. The wine spends about three years in oak before bottling.
In a year judged unworthy, the whole crop is sold off without the Yquem name. That happened nine times in the 20th century, including 1910, 1951, 1964, 1972, 1974 and 1992, and once so far in this century, in 2012. Average production is about 65,000 bottles a year by one count; by 2009, the cellar master said the team had raised it slightly to 100,000.
The family fight and the woman in the cellar
After the Marquis Bernard de Lur-Saluces died in 1968, the estate was run by Comte Alexandre de Lur-Saluces. Prices collapsed after the 1973 oil crisis, to 35 francs a bottle at one point, and recovered only in the 1980s. Under Alexandre, tractors replaced horses, collapsing cellars were repaired and in good years production reached 100,000 bottles.
A family feud ended the Lur-Saluces era. In November 1996 the luxury group LVMH announced it would buy a majority of the estate from other family members, and Alexandre fought the sale in court for more than two years. Sources date the change of control differently, from 1997 to the end of 1999; LVMH itself gives 1999. Alexandre stayed on until 2004, when Pierre Lurton, already running LVMH's Chateau Cheval Blanc, took over. Lurton brought in the consultant Denis Dubourdieu.
Sandrine Garbay arrived in 1994, at 27, to run Yquem's new laboratory, and in 1998 she was promoted to maitre de chai, the cellar master. In a 2009 profile, Decanter found her pulling berries off the first bunches of what would become the 2009 vintage and tasting them. She said the changes under Lurton were small but real: a little more freshness, slightly less time in barrel, tighter control at bottling. Francis Mayeur was technical director from 1983, later succeeded by Lorenzo Pasquini.
The 2009: big harvest, big wine
Fine weather held to the end of the 2009 harvest, which finished on October 19. The Swiss critic Rene Gabriel, tasting from barrel, wrote that it was the largest harvest by volume at Yquem since 1893 and that 160,000 bottles would be filled. Wine Spectator later reported 10,000 cases, or about 120,000 bottles. The two figures cannot both be the final count, and the critic's was an estimate made before bottling.
The blend is about 80% Semillon and 20% Sauvignon Blanc. Gabriel and Lisa Perrotti-Brown both give the residual sugar as 155 grams per liter, a little above the 150 of the celebrated 2001; another critic's note gives 137. Several critics remarked on how fresh the wine stays despite that sweetness, crediting the higher share of Sauvignon Blanc.
The critics put it among the greatest Yquems. Neal Martin of the Wine Advocate scored it 100 in March 2014, writing that only in a vertical do you realize it is up there among the legendary wines of the past, the 2001 included. Perrotti-Brown also gave it 100, Roger Voss 99, and Wine Spectator and James Suckling 98 each. Martin, retasting later for Vinous, scored it 97, writing that one bottle seemed scalped and the second did not quite hit the high notes.
What to know before you buy one
Every bottle of Yquem from this era carries the same simple label with the vintage; there is one Yquem a year, so the 2009 has no second wine or cuvee to confuse it with. Ygrec, or Y, is a different wine: the estate's dry white, first made in 1959 and produced every year since 2004.
Corks matter with old Yquem. One Bordeaux critic who scored the 2009 at 100 in 2016 found a later bottle from the same case disappointing and blamed the cork, noting that the estate stopped using that cork supplier from the 2013 vintage.
In fall 2026 a New York merchant listed a single 750 ml bottle at $950. For the long view: in July 2011 a bottle of the 1811 vintage sold in London for 75,000 pounds, about $117,000, reported as the most expensive bottle of white wine ever sold.
The numbers
- Vineyard
- About 100 ha in production; 126 ha in the appellation per one source, 113 ha of vines per another
- 2009 production
- 10,000 cases (Wine Spectator); 160,000 bottles projected from barrel (Rene Gabriel)
- Typical yield
- About 9 hL/ha
- Neal Martin, Wine Advocate (March 2014)
- 100
- Lisa Perrotti-Brown
- 100
- Roger Voss, Wine Enthusiast
- 99
- Wine Spectator (James Molesworth) / James Suckling
- 98 / 98
- Neal Martin, Vinous (later retasting)
- 97
Timeline
Jacques de Sauvage acquires tenure of Yquem from the French crown.
Leon de Sauvage d'Yquem becomes full owner; the estate is a vineyard from at least this date.
Francoise-Josephine de Sauvage d'Yquem marries Count Louis-Amedee de Lur-Saluces.
The countess dies and leaves the estate to her grandson, Romain-Bertrand de Lur-Saluces.
Yquem is ranked Premier Cru Superieur, the only Sauternes with that rank.
The dry white Ygrec is made for the first time.
Comte Alexandre de Lur-Saluces takes over the running of the estate.
Francis Mayeur becomes technical director.
Sandrine Garbay joins to run the estate's laboratory.
LVMH announces it will buy a majority stake from the Lur-Saluces family; a court fight follows.
Garbay is promoted to cellar master.
LVMH completes its acquisition, by its own account.
Alexandre de Lur-Saluces retires; Pierre Lurton takes over.
The 2009 harvest, one of the largest in the estate's history, finishes.
A bottle of 1811 Yquem sells in London for about $117,000.
The estate announces it will not release a 2012.
Neal Martin of the Wine Advocate scores the 2009 at 100.
The world in 2009
The first block of the Bitcoin blockchain is created.
US Airways Flight 1549 ditches in the Hudson River; all 155 aboard survive.
Barack Obama is sworn in as the 44th president of the United States.
NASA launches the Kepler mission to search for planets around other stars.
The H1N1 'swine flu' outbreak is declared a global pandemic.
Michael Jackson dies at 50.
The United Nations designates 2009 the International Year of Astronomy; Avatar becomes the year's top-grossing film.
Daily price data
FLOAT reprices this wine every day from completed sales. Last updated November 12, 2026.
Price record
| Date | Price | Kind |
|---|---|---|
| Oct 2026 | $950 | Asking price, not a saleSingle 750 ml bottle listed by a New York merchant. Not a sale. |
This is an asking price, not a sale. It is what a seller wanted on the date shown. Asking prices often sit above what buyers pay, but an ask is not a ceiling: a sale can land on either side of it. It is not a value.
By reference price, Chateau d'Yquem 2009 is number 50 of 100 in the wine entries of the FLOAT 100. 12 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (45 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.
Did you know
- Yquem has refused to release a vintage at all ten times since 1900, most recently in 2012.
- In the 1970s the price of a bottle of Yquem fell to 35 francs.
- A 135-year vertical of Yquem, every vintage from 1860 to 2003, sold as one lot in London in 2006 for $1.5 million.
- Yquem's cellar master in 2009, Sandrine Garbay, said she did not particularly enjoy drinking wine when she started studying it.
- In 2006 the estate and Dior created a skin cream made from the sap of Yquem's vines.
How this page is made
- The figure
- One reference price, shown with its own kind. FLOAT does not average it with anything or adjust it for time.
- Realized or not
- A realized price is a completed sale. An asking price, an estimate and a price-guide value are not sales, and are labeled as such wherever they appear.
- The story
- Researched from published records and checked fact by fact. Updated Oct 1, 2026.
- Archive
- Oct 5, 2026