TN: 2014 Chateau l'Avocat dessert wine [Cerons]

[AKR]

2014 Chateau l'Avocat [Cerons] 13% abv. We had a bottle of this Sauternes styled dessert wine last night, well chilled, and its a lovely sticky. This is nearly all Semillon according to the label, but when served cold, shows nice crispness. Very credible dessert wine. K&L direct imports this, and its a bargain right now. I think Cerons is actually across from the main Sauternes area, but sometimes they get the conditions to make botrytis afflicted dessert wines. Its pretty light in color now, without any nutty notes yet. I do not think this will age, but for drinking now, its yummy. Great for hot summer nights paired with sliced fresh fruit. B quality, but when price is considered, its worth reloading on. In Coates Bordeaux book he lightly touches upon Cerons sweet wines, but does not mention this estate. Although regarded as being less sweet than true Sauternes/Barsacs, this seemed just as solid as the 2nd tier of names like Filhot, Lamothe Guignard etc.

[AlexR]

Hi Arv,

You always drink such interesting wines, including ones I didn't think made it to the States!

Cérons is a case in point.

This tiny AOC is an enclave of the Graves next door to Barsac. There are only 50 hectares of vines. The wines are halfway between moelleux (semi-sweet) and liquoureux (sweet), although they can be quite similar to Barsacs in great years.

Ch. l'Avocat (meaning either lawyer or avocado in French...) is owned by a Welsh couple, Bob and Sue Watts. I've never had the wine.

The most well-known wines of Cérons (pronounced "say-rawnse") are the Ch. de Cérons, le Grand Enclos du Château de Cérons, and the one made by Ch. de Chantegrive.

Alex R.

All the best,
Alex

[AKR]

K&L in San Francisco has the licensing for direct importing, which I understand isn't very easy, and they might be grandfathered in for that privilege.

And my sister in law's hairdresser is near their new location, and so far she has not objected to my occasional requests for pickups, since K&L doesn't let one hold stuff there too long.

So a combination that allows one to experiment, since the direct imports are typically priced as daily drinkers, things to leave in a kitchen wine rack.

The AOC might be reputed to be not so sweet, but this was the normal sticky sweetness to my taste.

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I had not realized the popular Chantegrive is from the Cerons area.

[AKR]

We had another bottle of the 14 l'Avocat [Cerons] tonight, with a pumpkin cheese cake, and a pumpkin 'drop' cake. Not as crisp as a real Barsac, but still good.

There were a lot of kids running around the house today, and the dog is still spazzed out, and the cat in hiding.

I'm going to relax with the final glass of the Cerons and brave the Netflix bandwidth clogs in the evening.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

[AKR]

We had out last 500ml bottle of this over the last few days. It remains very good, and a crazy value -- $8 per btl !

A nice wine to just leave in the fridge and have casually as the nightly chores are completed.

I've drunk a lot of dessert wines for 3x to 5x the price that were no better.

[DavidG]

I love avocados and I married a lawyer, so I suppose I should like Ch. L'Avocat.
We don’t open sweet wines very often but I’d try this if it were locally available.