A Dry Future for Sauternes?

Sauternes is world-famous for its legendary and long-lived sweet wines but is its future a dry one? Dry as in dry white wines? Olivier Bernard of Clos des Lunes, as well as President of the Union des Grand Crus de Bordeaux, tells Decanter that he's looking to more than double production of dry white wine. Why? Drop in demand of sweet wine. And dry wine can help drive the marketing and sales when it comes to sweet wine. Bernard explains, "I hope we will have more dry white wine in the region. It gives another dimension to Sauternes. And, everywhere that we sell dry whites, we also sell sweet."

Interestingly enough, current dry white wine produced in Sauternes can only be given the AOC Bordeaux Blanc label. Some producers are lobbying for these white wines to be able to use the Graves designation or Sauternes Sec as well, but others are against any white wines that are not sweet carrying the name "Sauternes" on the label.

Would you be interested in tasting dry white wines from Sauternes if they were labeled as being from that storied region?