Inside The Uniquely Rare Château Ausone Dinner In Kuala Lumpur

Château Ausone is named for the Roman poet, politician, and vintner Decimus Magnus Ausonius, who lived in this area of Bordeaux in the fourth century. More than 1,600 years later, the wines that bear his name feature highly on any collector’s list, with their labels among the biggest and longest-lived in Bordeaux. Towards the end of 2025, fine-dining establishment Sabayon, located on the topmost floor of EQ Kuala Lumpur, set the scene for an encounter with two Chapelle d’Ausone vintages and four vintages by Château Ausone at its maiden Kuala Lumpur dinner, accompanied by its 11th-generation owner and winemaker Édouard Vauthier.

In his opening, Vauthier describes the Château Ausone’s unique plot of land as a rocky and ancient outcropping on a hill planted with vines since the fourth century. By 1690, the Vauthier family would become the owners of this area, 7.25ha of small terraces on the hillside and plateau to the southern entrance of the medieval town of Saint-Emilion.

On this “mineral theatre”, where clay-limestone with asteria soil meet, the fruit flourishes and develops into a “very smooth, controlled, and powerful wine”. Here, the family’s seven hectares are grown with Cabernet Franc (65 per cent), Merlot (37 per cent), and three per cent of Cabernet Sauvignon. “Château Ausone is really the quintessence of our terroir, where much of the wine is made in the ground,” Vauthier says. And this also leads to its rarity—in a year, only 2,500 cases are produced, making the wine highly limited.

This rarity also made this dinner, hosted together with Bordeaux Liquid Gold—the distributor of Château Ausone in Malaysia—a very significant one among its series of wine dinners held in Malaysia. Julian Poh, Bordeaux Liquid Gold’s CEO, reflects: “Château Ausone seldom opens its table to the world. To gather 11 generations of its winemaking heritage and traditions in one evening was not just a dinner—it was a moment of history, quietly and exceptionally revealed.”

The evening would then swing into the dinner pairing, with the mesmerising wines taking centre stage: a stunning breadth of fruit, and a symphony of aromas and flavours. It began with the 2010 Chapelle d’Ausone and a scallop tartare with truffle. The wine is a cuvée of wine produced from some of the younger vines on selected plots in the exact same terroir as that of Ausone.

The 2010 carried an aromatic depth of dark berries, orange blossom, and mineral notes with a velvety and full-bodied palate. Then came the foie gras and, with it, the 2015 Chapelle d’Ausone with its nose of lavender, roses, violets, and dark berries. A round, soft, and textured palate invites you to drink it now.

Then came the quartet of the undoubted stars of the dinner. The 2005 vintage of Château Ausone took a bow with absolute brilliance—rated as one of the finest accomplishments of Saint-Emilion and Bordeaux’s right bank of the 21st century. Its marvellous complexity, enhanced by an Indian summer that ripened the grapes to perfection, is showcased in its profound nose of dark fruit, with mineral undertones, and a texture bordering on perfection. Rounding it off are the tactile finesse of its imperious tannins, quiet and commanding.

Next came the 2010 vintage, a big and bold wine, with its black fruit core and captivating perfume, paired with a blackcurrant sorbet. Following in its wake was the 2015 vintage, highly expressive and aromatic with rose petals, fresh herbs, dark berries, and raspberries. Its palate displayed the same full-bodied power and, yet, with a precise, stunning purity unfolding endlessly in its finish.

Bringing up the rear was the Château Ausone of 2017, already exhibiting its inherent elegance with complex tannins, dense fruit of blackberry layers and a delicate smoky finish. A swirl in the mouth unlocks the vintage’s refined acidity, one which promises a graceful development in the years to come—and yet already offering immense pleasure in its youth.

Chateau Ausone

Photography by Joshua Chay / The Spacemen

Videography by The Spacemen