Daniel Iffla, a financier who signed himself Osiris, left Château La Tour Blanche to the French state on his death in 1907, on one condition: that it be run as a school teaching viticulture and winemaking. It still is. The estate was ranked first among the Premiers Crus of Sauternes in 1855, immediately behind Yquem, and the wine has been made by staff and students together ever since.
1947 is the vintage collectors know by name. A blazing summer pushed sugars to levels the cellars of the day struggled to control; for red Bordeaux that heat caused real trouble, but in Sauternes, where the whole aim is concentration, it was a gift. The pickers went through the vineyard repeatedly, taking only berries the noble rot had shrivelled.
Bottles from 1947 are now genuinely scarce rather than merely old. Expect dark amber, the sweetness settled into dried apricot and old orange peel, and a wine that has been in glass longer than most people reading this have been alive.
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Producer: Château La Tour Blanche
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Vintage: 1947
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Appellation: Sauternes AOC
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Format: 75cl
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Region: Bordeaux, France
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Style: Sweet or fortified
Where it is likely to be now. A Sauternes First Growth of this age is usually still standing rather than dead, but at seventy-nine years it is sold as a collectible piece with no promise about what is in the glass.
Who it suits. Suits a seventy-ninth birthday, or a bottle bought a year early and put away for the eightieth.
Condition. Graded good overall, with corrosion on the metal capsule that covers the cork — very common on bottles of this era, and cosmetic rather than proof that anything has seeped.
Provenance. Bought to order from a professional European merchant. We check fill, label and capsule when the bottle reaches us and photograph it before it ships.
Delivered in 7 to 10 working days, tracked. Transit cover can be added at checkout.
Sold as a collectible item, as seen. No guarantee is given on drinkability.
