St. Julien, Médoc, Bordeaux, France
The 2018 Ducru-Beaucaillou, tasted just after my in-bottle tastings, is all mint and violet over the nose, precocious and generous, very pure and enticing. The palate is medium-bodied with a lot of new oak that will be subsumed with time. This is very pure, beautifully balanced, silky smooth with great precision on the finish. It is a superb 2018 that will need at least a decade in the cellar and with even more pixelation than the bottle earlier this year, it gets another precision point in my score. Tasted at the Ducru Beaucaillou vertical at the château. (Neal Martin, Vinous, July 2022)
The 2018 Ducru-Beaucaillou, tasted just after my in-bottle tastings, is all mint and violet over the nose, precocious and generous, very pure and enticing. The palate is medium-bodied with a lot of new oak that will be subsumed with time. This is very pure, beautifully balanced, silky smooth with great precision on the finish. It is a superb 2018 that will need at least a decade in the cellar and with even more pixelation than the bottle earlier this year, it gets another precision point in my score. Tasted at the Ducru Beaucaillou vertical at the château. (Neal Martin, Vinous, July 2022)
Compared to the Second Wine, the 2018 Ducru-Beaucaillou clearly displays more new oak on the nose, which is to be expected given that it was entirely aged in new wood. The bouquet is very intense, particularly after 3–4 hours of opening (like many 2018s), offering copious scents of blackberries, blueberry, mint and violet, all while maintaining excellent delineation and focus. The palate is medium-bodied with supple tannins that render the texture velvety-smooth and polished. There is a surfeit of exceedingly pure black fruits laced with cedar and mint bound up in this Saint-Julien. The finish is serene but very persistent. This will be a seductive and sophisticated Ducru-Beaucaillou that deserves several years in bottle. (Neal Martin, Vinous, March 2021)
Compared to the Second Wine, the 2018 Ducru-Beaucaillou clearly displays more new oak on the nose, which is to be expected given that it was entirely aged in new wood. The bouquet is very intense, particularly after 3–4 hours of opening (like many 2018s), offering copious scents of blackberries, blueberry, mint and violet, all while maintaining excellent delineation and focus. The palate is medium-bodied with supple tannins that render the texture velvety-smooth and polished. There is a surfeit of exceedingly pure black fruits laced with cedar and mint bound up in this Saint-Julien. The finish is serene but very persistent. This will be a seductive and sophisticated Ducru-Beaucaillou that deserves several years in bottle. (Neal Martin, Vinous, March 2021)
Outstanding++. Already showing some nice maturity. Extremely well balanced. Drink now or wait for something very special.
Outstanding++. Already showing some nice maturity. Extremely well balanced. Drink now or wait for something very special.
Jan 1st, 2022
