Didier Dagueneau Jurancon Les Jardins de Babylone Moelleux 2015

The 2015 Les Jardins de Babylone is simply outstanding; layered and pulpy with ripe stone fruit shot through with crystalline grapefruit and orange rind freshness. Deep and yet somehow delicate and fresh, it is both a wine that will live for decades but a wonderful drink now! A release that easily justifies the claim, often made, that this is one of the world’s great sweet wines.

Made in tiny quantities from ridiculously low yields of 100% Petit Manseng, this offers all the purity and precision of Dagueneau’s greatest wines. The pricing reflects the costs of making the wine (via a berry-by-berry selection despite the fact that no botrytis is involved here). To arrive there, Didier previously claimed he simply totalled up the cost of the project each year and divided it by the number of bottles made. Sounds logical enough! The low yields and the warmth of the site means Les Jardins de Babylone can be picked as early as late October; a full month before the grapes for conventional Jurançon moelleux are picked. Even so, the wine usually ends up with approximately 125g/L residual sugar, perfectly balanced by mouth-watering, tangy acidity, rendering a wine with fabulous verve and drive.