We have to get to the middle of the 17th century before the name La Tour Blanche appears in connection with Sauternes wine. The wealthy Jean de Saint-Marc de Latourblanche converts the small monastery into a castle and naturally equips it with a white tower, just as he restores the vineyards. After this, the château flourishes, and when the German Frederick Focke is at the head of it 100 years later, the wines from La Tour Blanche are considered among the very best on a par with the wines from Yquem.
Focke, who learned to make sweet wine in his native country, claims to have introduced the very method of using grapes attacked by botrytis. However, it does not fit. The method is already known by several Sauternes châteaux, so Frederick Focke can only take credit for spreading it further and teaching several château owners to select their grapes even more carefully before vinification. The result is that many of the Sauternes wines reach such a high level of quality that they are included in the famous 1855 classification of Bordeaux’s best châteaux. The same year Frederick Focke dies.
La Tour Blanche is taken over by Osiris in 1876 – a pseudonym for the extremely wealthy and philanthropic financier Daniel Iffla, who nurtures a lifelong love of fine wines. He makes large investments in the château, but when he dies in 1907, he leaves no heirs and Château La Tour passes to the French state on the one condition that a wine school is established at the château. It exists to this day and the legacy of Iffla is marked with the words “Donation Osiris” on the bottle labels.
The production is now handled by professionals from the wine industry, who have the one goal that La Tour Blanche must live up to its 1st cru status. The property is almost 37 hectares planted with 83 per cent. semillon, 12 per cent. sauvignon blanc and 5 percent muscadelle. The grapes are harvested manually in several rounds – and only when they have been attacked by botrytis. The vinification takes place in new and slightly used oak barrels, and the wine is then stored for 16-18 months in barriques and steel tanks, respectively, before the final blend is made.
A clean and full-bodied wine with intense honey sweetness and notes of yellow apples, peach, mango and orange peel.
