What a vintage for Château Ducru-Beaucaillou. The Grand Vin has extraordinary depth in 2019. It is a giant in terms of extract and structure. The fruit is so compelling and the tannins so supple, it must surely vie to be amongst one of the wines of the vintage, along with that other left bank stunner Pichon Lalande [more on that wine shortly]. This Ducru is clearly a legendary wine in the making. It feels more evidently tannic than the other potential ‘hundred pointers’ in 2019 but what a wine. It’s a fitting tribute for the 300^th anniversary vintage here [yep Ducru has been around since 1720]. La Croix de Beaucaillou looks really good in 2019 too. It is wonderfully plush and refined. There are also some additions to Bruno Borie’s line up here with the release of St Julien Le Petit Ducru [effectively replacing Lalande Borie] and a new Haut-Médoc, Madame de Beaucaillou, both of which also impressed.

I hope to expand on these tasting notes soon. Despite several [costly] speeding tickets that later turned up in the post, I arrived fractionally too late to the UGCB event held at Château Talbot to taste a number of wines from the St Julien commune. These included some of my favourites Gloria, Gruaud-Larose and St Pierre as well as the Bartons [Léoville and Langoa]. Below are the notes on the St Julien properties I did visit individually during primeurs week –  Château Ducru-Beaucaillou, Château Léoville-Las-Cases and Château Léoville Poyferré. There are also notes on Château Moulin Riche, Château du Glana, Clos du Marquis and Lalande-Borie. Hopefully I’ll get the opportunity to correct the omissions here at a later point.

As usual Bruno Borie provides a typically idiosyncratic but totally apt overview of the 2016 vintage. He sees it in biblical terms. First there was the ‘flood’ – the extremely wet conditions in the first four to five months of the year. Then the plague – the attacks of odium and mildew. This was followed by time in the wilderness – the exceptionally dry and hot summer. Finally they arrived in the ‘Promised Land’ – a late harvest in an Indian summer which has produced exceptional wine. 2016 certainly completes a remarkable trilogy of back to back vintages here at Château Ducru-Beaucaillou. Qualitatively I feel it pips 2014 and even 2015.

There is no doubt that St Julien has made extremely good wine in 2015. Purity and balance are the hallmarks here. Whether this vintage eventually serves as the best vintage since the 2009 and 2010 combination, will depend on the progress in barrel of the 2014 vintage. This was a vintage that impressed me last year in St Julien. It is certainly better value compared with 2015 given this year’s release prices. While 2015 definitely has the edge in quality, does it command the 20%-50%+ mark up over the previous vintage here? I’m not so sure. Only time will tell. Let’s just say that prices this year are decidedly firm!