Château Ducru-Beaucaillou 2016

Coup de cœur Guide Vert 2020: "2016 reste le plus grand Ducru moderne ! Une bouteille d'un raffinement exemplaire, porté par l'élégance du fruit, des épices et la suavité des tannins. Une harmonie parfaite et une finale vibrante."

"Super perfumed, attractive violets with a thread of fresh blueberries, cassis, blackberries and dark plums, delivering a very enticing impression. Beautiful ripeness here. The tannins are perfectly ripe and layers meld into each other, carrying deep, graceful and plush, velvety dark fruit long into the vibrant and seductive, chocolate-laced finish. Great potential. Try from 2024."

"Deep garnet-purple colored, the 2016 Ducru-Beaucaillou features a wonderfully savory, earthy/meaty nose, delivering well-defined notes of tapenade, truffles, charcuterie and sautéed herbs over crème de cassis, wild blueberries and kirsch with wafts of pencil lead and menthol. Medium to full-bodied, the palate is built like a brick house with the taut, muscular fruit well framed by very firm yet very ripe and finely grained tannins, offering a quiet intensity of red fruit and mineral sparks and finishing with epic length."

"Offers exotic, cashmere-textured, mocha-infused blackberry, cassis and plum puree flavors, with smoldering incense and warm fruitcake notes and a swath of plush yet serious grip too boot, showing ample depth and breath. As distinctive a Bordeaux as there is these days. Best from 2025 through 2040."

"Reminding me of the 2010 with its incredible stature and class (as opposed to the more opulently styled 2009), the 2016 Château Ducru-Beaucaillou is a legendary wine from the genius of Bruno Borie, who has managed this estate brilliantly since he arrived in 2003. A blend of 85% Cabernet Sauvignon and 15% Merlot brought up all in new oak, the 2016 has a mammoth bouquet of crème de cassis, espresso, camphor, crushed violets, toasty oak, and graphite. Full-bodied, concentrated, and backward on the palate, it nevertheless has perfectly integrated acidity and building tannins, a concentrated, layered texture, off-the-charts purity of fruit, and a finish that won't quit. Give this powerful, concentrated wine a solid 7-8 years of bottle age and enjoy it over the following 50 years or more."

"Bruno suggests the 2018 might be a little like the 1961, but instead of frost at flowering they had mildew. Yields were average at 20hl/ha, the stunning summer helping to produce incredible concentration. This is a whole other level of richness and tightness, with very fine, taut tannins and concentrated, utterly gorgeous fruit with touches of violet and a silky, spun-lace texture. This is one of the best wines I've tasted today, just supremely elegant with depth and verticality. It's still knitted up and only unrolls extremely slowly; linear and laser-like. It has the concentrated signature of 2016 with lift, but again in St-Julien I can also see the hand of 2010, more so than in other appellations."

"This wine conveys density but its richness is sublimated by the complex structure and beautiful ripe fruit. Its power comes from the structure as much as the fruit, promising a wine with an immensely long life ahead of it. Drink from 2025."