The 2009 Bordeaux vintage has lost none of its power to charm and captivate.

A recent tasting in Atlanta showed that most of these wines are still in their first blush of youth, and the best will live for decades.

The intervening years have only confirmed what we suspected even on release – this is among the epochal vintages from Bordeaux.

It represents a turning point in the wines of Bordeaux in so many ways – the warming climate, the changing styles, the fashion for the wines – yet 2009 stands alone.

The chance to revisit these wines was exciting for all the tasters. Michael Davis, principal at Hart Davis Hart auction house in the US, expressed it best when he said that for him 2009 was 'joyful and expressive'.

The alluring 2009 style

There were several top-flight vintages in the first decade of the new century, beginning with superb millennial vintage, the almost unbearably hot 2003 that delivered sybaritic delights; the monumental 2005, still tannic and not yet ready to drink, with the charming 2006 and 2008 just behind.

There are many wine lovers, however, who would argue that the finest vintage of the decade was 2009. The wines are voluptuous, accessible, and hedonistic, yet structured enough to last.

It occurred to me while tasting through these two dozen wines that 2009 resembles the wines from 1982, and I began to think of 2009 as an updated version of 1982 – almost a ‘1982.2’.

The wines in general are substantial and have abundant extract; lots of tannin yet no astringency; enough acidity to give definition but not so much as to make them hard or unyielding; and a sweet, ripe character to the fruit with no sense of it being baked or over-ripe.

The secret to the seductive nature of the fruit in 2009 is that the vines never shut down during the growing season, as they do in the face of excessive heat or drought.

There was just enough water in July and August to keep the vines ripening the fruit throughout the season, and while there were hot days (and plenty of sunshine), the grapes did not suffer the excessive heat spikes that they saw in 2000 or 2003.

The weather behind the magic

The year got off to an appropriate start with a cold, wet winter that plunged the vines into dormancy, refilled the water table, ensuring that budbreak didn't start too early.

There was no hint of spring frost, and although there was a hail storm on 11 May, it did not damage the best vines.

Flowering happened early and finished quickly, setting a large crop on the vines. Crucially, the growing season was hot and sunny, but not so much as to interrupt the grapes gentle ripening.

The region saw moderate rainfall on 18, 19, and 20 September, but there was no further rain until the harvest was complete.

The key to success was to wait until after the rain to pick the Merlot, and to wait until the Cabernet was fully ripe, beginning in mid-October.

Because of the gentle nature of the growing season, the vines ripened to levels not often seen in Bordeaux – mostly over 14% on the Left Bank and up to (and sometimes beyond) 15% on the Right Bank.

If picked at the right time, both Cabernet and Merlot were successful.

Because of the lush, forward character these conditions delivered, these powerful wines are beginning to open up now.

While it is not too early to pull some corks, the best of these wines should continue to improve for decades to come.

From boom to bargain: The market context

When the 2009 vintage came to market, the world was in love with Bordeaux wine. Demand was booming in Asia, and the 2008 financial crisis was disappearing in the rear window.

With consumers in the UK, US, and Hong Kong all avidly chasing top Bordeaux wines, the 2009 primeurs offers were optimistic, and prices seemed dear indeed.

In the intervening 15 years since this primeurs campaign, however, much has changed – Bordeaux wines have lost some of their shine, the global wine market is depressed, and producers are sitting on significant stocks.

As a consequence, prices for these sumptuous wines have not increased greatly, and are, in some cases, lower today than they were upon release.

For a buyer looking for immediate pleasure, long-term cellaring potential, and perhaps smart appreciation, the 2009 vintage represents a wonderful opportunity.

Standout performers

Among the delights of the tasting were second growths that were drinking like firsts, particularly Léoville-Las Cases, Léoville-Poyferré, Pichon-Baron and Gruaud-Larose (as well as perennial overachieving fifth growth Pontet-Canet).

There were also strong performances further down the price ladder like Poujeaux and Malescot-Saint-Exupéry.

Although were some disappointments – I felt that both Lynch-Bages and Pavie should have done better given the conditions – the best wines of the vintage are classics that will long outlive most of us, particularly Margaux and Lafite, with Cheval, Mouton, and La Mission Haut-Brion not far behind.

Bordeaux 2009: 24 top wines from this epochal vintage

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Overshadowed by the first and second growths, the Médoc’s third growth estates are quietly undergoing one of Bordeaux’s most compelling qualitative evolutions – often delivering second growth-level quality but at more approachable prices.

Ironically, the catalyst may be the very classification that’s considered by many as obsolete.

With two notable exceptions, the third growths occupy an uneasy position within the Médoc hierarchy, neither rivalling the established aristocracy of the firsts or ‘super seconds’ (those second growths widely considered now to be performing at potentially first growth standard), nor having their status challenged by any glaringly insurgent success stories emerging from the fifth growths, whose own stars regularly defy official ranking.

Fifths such as Châteaux Pontet-Canet and Lynch-Bages now regularly command secondgrowth pricing, for example.

The 1855 Classification, in other words, has long ceased to function as an immutable ladder of quality.

Instead, the third growths exist in a zone defined less by hierarchy and more by expectation: dependable, historically respected, yet less often thrilling.

But a recent comparative tasting shows how that perception is changing.

Natural progression

For this article, the Maison Héritage restaurant in Sessenheim, Alsace (formerly known as Auberge au Boeuf, holder of a Michelin star from 2015 until early 2026) hosted a horizontal tasting of all 14 Médoc third growths from the 2020 vintage.

Unsurprisingly, Châteaux Palmer and Calon Ségur emerged as clearly the leading wines. More revealing was how the remaining 12 compared.

Pricing data from Liv-ex, a global marketplace for the trade, show that, aside from Palmer and the rapidly ascending Calon Ségur, these estates have traded within a significantly lower band of pricing for roughly a quarter of a century.

Qualitatively, however, divergence has become increasingly apparent. As you can read in the tasting notes, each wine was paired with an older reference vintage, to gauge not only stylistic identity but tangible progress.

Improvements in viticulture, investment in wineries and increasingly precise winemaking have begun to reshape the third growth category from within.

Hive of activity

The framework defining these estates remains frozen in time. Conceived for Napoleon III’s Exposition Universelle de 1855 in Paris, the Classification still governs perception despite more than 170 years of transformation.

Of the 14 third growths, 13 continue to display their classified status prominently on labels, serving as both historical credential and commercial shorthand.

Only Château Palmer declines to display the distinction.

The irony is in the history. Charles Palmer was still assembling vineyards in Cantenac shortly before the 1855 Classification was finalised, meaning the estate that today rivals Bordeaux’s elite had not yet fully taken shape when the rankings were fixed.

Palmer’s third growth status reflects timing rather than intrinsic quality – a discrepancy long since corrected by the market.

Leaps and bounds

If the Classification no longer accurately describes a hierarchy, it continues nonetheless to shape behaviour.

Over the past two decades, that influence has produced something unexpected: competition within the Classification itself.

Across the Médoc region, vineyard restructuring, sustainability initiatives and increasingly refined cellar practices have collectively raised standards.

In St-Julien, Château Lagrange illustrates how long-term investment can quietly bolster stature.

A complete cellar modernisation completed in 2010 nearly doubled fermentation capacity, enabling precise parcel-by-parcel vinification.

Château Langoa Barton, long overshadowed by second growth Léoville Barton, has refined its approach steadily over the past 15 years through careful replanting and increasingly precise gravity-fed vinification, improving tannin quality while preserving its own style of St-Julien restraint.

Château La Lagune, the only Haut-Médoc appellation wine among the third growths, reflects the long-term influence of Caroline Frey, whose tenure from 2004 to 2025 (now managed by sister Delphine Frey) saw conversion to certified biodynamic winemaking alongside the introduction of massal selection (by taking cuttings from existing estate vine stocks) starting in 2008, strengthening vineyard identity and resilience.

Rising tide of quality

Including Palmer, 10 of the 14 third growths come from the Margaux appellation, some better known than others.

Château Ferrière, which impressed many tasting participants (some of whom had never heard of it) continues to pursue certified biodynamic viticulture following cellar renovations in 2013 that have enhanced precision and transparency in winemaking.

Better-known Château Giscours has sustained technical stewardship and, especially since the beginning of this century, it has transformed former inconsistency into one of Margaux’s most compelling contemporary expressions, combining aromatic finesse with structural confidence.

Château Cantenac Brown has entered a new phase of refinement, with 9.5ha of newly acquired vineyard parcels in 2020, additions that contribute greater depth and compositional precision, as well as the installation of completely new cellars, inaugurated in April 2024 (first vintage 2023).

Château d’Issan, known for its parcel-by-parcel winemaking and one of the most appreciated wines in the tasting, also acquired vineyard parcels in 2020, bordering Château Margaux, adding Malbec and Petit Verdot as blending options since that vintage.

At Château Kirwan, a decisive stylistic shift endures, following the arrival of general manager Philippe Delfaut in 2007.

Moving away from later harvesting and heavy oak influence, the estate adopted softer extractions and a more classical expression, consolidated by new cellars opened in 2017 enabling parcel-by-parcel vinification.

Château Malescot St-Exupéry retains a richer, more modern Margaux expression shaped with late consultant Michel Rolland, although the wood regime here seems to evolve toward greater balance, with new oak usage reduced in recent vintages.

Château Marquis d’Alesme shows renewal through both technical and experiential investment.

Cellar renovations completed in 2015 improved vinification precision, while increased Cabernet Sauvignon plantings and the creation of Le Hameau, a tucked-away space for food accompanied by the estate’s wines, have positioned Marquis d’Alesme as an innovator in wine tourism within Margaux.

Unequal progress

Not all estates have advanced equally.

Aside from increasing percentages of Petit Verdot in recent blends, Château Boyd-Cantenac remains austere, while Château Desmirail, another less well-known estate, appears only recently to be translating technical evolution into qualitative momentum.

The inclusion of Petit Verdot from mature vines, advances in pragmatic ecological vineyard management and the addition of truncated wooden vats have allowed more refined maceration and improved structural polish.

Such disparities underline a central paradox: the Classification groups estates together, while modern viticulture increasingly separates them.

Above this transforming field stands Château Palmer, not a static exception but rather a moving benchmark.

Under director Thomas Duroux, biodynamic viticulture, rigorous parcel selection and tasting-led extraction have progressively refined texture and transparency, allowing the estate to redefine excellence within this Classification rank.

Château Calon Ségur represents a different, still unfolding ascent.

Extensive replanting since the mid-2000s has left the vineyard unusually young, yet increases in both vine density and the proportion of Cabernet Sauvignon in the vineyard promise further gains in structure and precision.

Recent vintages, including the 2020, already perform convincingly up against second growth-level wines.

Inspiring to improve

Which brings us inevitably to the enduring question: is the 1855 Classification obsolete?

Undeniably so, if judged as a hierarchy intended to reflect today’s realities. Yet its continued existence has produced a fascinating irony.

Unable to change their historical rank, estates have instead worked to be deserving of it.

Many of the third growths, positioned at the centre of Bordeaux’s most famous classification, consequently now count among the Médoc’s most dynamic properties.

The 1855 Classification may no longer precisely determine quality, but the desire not to fall short of its rankings continues to drive producers’ ambition.

In Bordeaux, history rarely disappears. Sometimes, inconveniently yet effectively, it contrives to keep everyone on their toes.

Médoc third growths: The Panos Kakaviatos (PK) revised ranking

If the 1855 Médoc Classification of grand cru classé estates were revised today, the following are my hypothetical rankings, based on current quality, market perception and qualitative evolution of each estate – listed in their proposed ‘new’ order, and alphabetically within that.

Tasting notes and pricing shown here (average price before tax as shown on wine-searcher.com on 12 April 2026) use the 2020 vintage as a benchmark; pricing among the Médoc third growths reveals how the existing 1855 hierarchy can still dictate market positioning, albeit not always in step with relative quality.

Châteaux Palmer and Calon Ségur are both priced in clear recognition of top performance in 2020.

Then there is the cluster of 12 other current third growths, though not all are equal in quality – in reinterpreting the rankings today, I would create a category similar to the ‘super seconds’, or in this case the ‘thrilling thirds’.

This is to reflect the reality that estates such as Cantenac Brown, d’Issan, Giscours, Lagrange and Langoa Barton are delivering relatively higher quality than the others, at prices that have not yet fully caught up.

By contrast, wines such as Château Desmirail and Boyd-Cantenac appear less compelling in value terms, relative to their peers.

The 1855 Classification appears on all their labels, other than Palmer, but the degree to which the Classification still anchors price, regardless of progress in viticulture and winemaking, creates striking disparities in value within the category.

Château Palmer

Margaux

PK revised ranking: First growth

Directed by Thomas Duroux, Palmer cultivates 66ha under certified biodynamic management, combining meticulous parcel stewardship with advanced research into climate resilience and vineyard adaptation.

Technical expertise underpins precise extraction and ageing, with wines maturing 20-22 months in 50%-70% new oak.

The inauguration of the estate’s Village complex in 2025, including staff facilities and a restaurant, reflects Palmer’s commitment to collective identity, sustainability and long-term cultural as well as technical leadership.

Average bottle price: £243*

Château Calon Ségur

St-Estèphe

PK revised ranking: Second growth

Directed by Vincent Millet, Calon Ségur cultivates a largely unchanged 55ha vineyard representing one of the Médoc’s rare historical continuities.

Cabernet Sauvignon accounts for roughly 57% of plantings here, with restructuring underway to increase its proportion. Ageing extends 18-20 months in new oak.

Average bottle price: £88*

Château Cantenac Brown

Margaux

PK revised ranking: Thrilling third

Under director José Sanfins, this 75ha estate is planted largely to Cabernet Sauvignon.

Since new ownership in 2019, vineyard acquisitions together with major investment – notably an eco-designed gravity winery first used for the 2023 vintage – have strengthened precision and estate coherence.

Wines mature for 16-18 months in about 60% new oak.

Average bottle price: £42*

Château d’Issan

Margaux

PK revised ranking: Thrilling third

Jointly owned by Jacky Lorenzetti and Emmanuel Cruse, d’Issan cultivates 55ha under technical director Eric Pellon.

Careful parcel-by-parcel selection and vinification, reinforced by recent vineyard acquisitions, enhance precision and integration across the estate.

Wines age for about 18 months in 50% new oak.

Average bottle price: £45*

Château Giscours

Margaux

PK revised ranking: Thrilling third

Led by general manager Alexander van Beek, Giscours cultivates 100ha planted predominantly to Cabernet Sauvignon.

Continued refinement in both vineyard and cellar has reinforced consistency and precision across vintages.

Ageing lasts up to 21 months in around 50% new oak.

Average bottle price: £47*

Château Lagrange

St-Julien

PK revised ranking: Thrilling third

Directed by Matthieu Bordes, Lagrange cultivates an unusually continuous 118ha estate dating back to 1855.

A major cellar expansion completed in 2010, which effectively doubled vat capacity, allows extensive parcel-by-parcel vinification and enhanced precision.

Wines age up to 21 months in roughly 50% new oak.

Average bottle price: £38*

Château Langoa Barton

St-Julien

PK revised ranking: Thrilling third

Managed by Damien Barton Sartorius, Langoa Barton cultivates 20ha reflecting a classical St-Julien balance rooted in long family stewardship.

Recent investment has improved parcel precision while preserving traditional proportions.

Wines are aged about 18 months in 60% new oak.

Average bottle price: £36*

Château Ferrière

Margaux

PK revised ranking: No change

Owned and directed by Claire Villars-Lurton, Ferrière cultivates 24ha under certified organic and biodynamic management.

Old massal-selection vines contribute finesse and aromatic precision, reflecting a philosophy centred on terroir expression.

Wines age 16-18 months in roughly 40% new oak.

Average bottle price: £33*

Château Kirwan

Margaux

PK revised ranking: No change

Directed by Philippe Delfaut, Kirwan cultivates 37ha with an emphasis on gentler extraction and greater terroir clarity following stylistic evolution initiated in the late 2000s.

Modern cellars enable detailed parcel by parcel vinification, with ageing lasting 18-21 months in about 50% new oak.

Average bottle price: £40*

Château La Lagune

Haut-Médoc

PK revised ranking: No change

Long guided by Caroline Frey and now managed by her sister Delphine Frey, La Lagune cultivates approximately 80ha planted to Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Petit Verdot.

Biodynamic certification achieved in 2021 reflects sustained attention to vineyard vitality.

Wines age 16-18 months in around 50% new oak.

Average bottle price: £34*

Château Malescot St-Exupéry

Margaux

PK revised ranking: No change

Owned by Jean-Luc Zuger and guided for almost three decades by the recently late consultant Michel Rolland, this 28ha estate cultivates Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot alongside smaller proportions of Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot.

A gradual reduction in new oak seeks greater freshness within the estate’s historically opulent style.

Ageing lasts 16-18 months.

Average bottle price: £39*

Château Marquis d’Alesme

Margaux

PK revised ranking: No change

Acquired by Hubert Perrodo in 2006 and subsequently developed under the leadership of his daughter Nathalie Perrodo, this 14ha estate has undergone extensive renovation since 2015, improving vineyard precision and balance.

Wines age 16-18 months in about 50% new oak.

Average bottle price: £36*

Château Desmirail

Margaux

PK revised ranking: Fourth growth

Now directed by Thierry Lurton, Desmirail cultivates 35ha combining Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot with increasing Petit Verdot influence.

Expanded vineyard holdings and updated cellar facilities allow more detailed parcel vinification.

Wines age 16-18 months in about 50% new oak.

Average bottle price: £31*

Château Boyd-Cantenac

Margaux

PK revised ranking: Fifth growth

Owned by Lucien Guillemet, this 17ha Margaux estate cultivates predominantly Cabernet Sauvignon alongside Merlot, Cabernet Franc and increasing Petit Verdot proportions intended to reinforce structure and freshness.

Wines are aged 15-18 months in 80%-90% new oak.

Average bottle price: £36*

Third Growth wines

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St-Julien delivered classic poise and personality in 2025.

The appellation’s gravel soils with pockets of clay provided good drainage yet retained enough moisture through the dry summer to support even ripening, while the late-August rains and cool September nights preserved acidity and delivered the vintage’s signature freshness.

Nonetheless, yields were among the lowest ever for some estates (20–28 hl/ha range), but the resulting wines show supple tannins, vibrant colour, stony grip and excellent balance – elegant, structured and age-worthy, with the low pH/fresh acidity and fine tannins that define successful St-Julien vintages.

Sara Lecompte Cuvelier owner of Château Léoville Poyferré highlighted, ‘the unusual balance between concentration, fruit and freshness’ and noted she, ‘didn’t expect low alcohols and so much freshness’.

Mathieu Bordes director of Château Lagrange called the 2025 vintage the ‘fourth warmest ever’ with a ‘cooler September’ leading to their ‘earliest harvest ever’. and noted the smallest berries since 1984, the shortest maceration in 19 years, and a style ‘like 2009 on the attack’.

Tiny quantities

Although yields fell across Bordeaux, a striking fact about St-Julien is how many were lower even than in 2013 – a year marked by poor weather and ruined crops.

Château Langoa Barton recorded a yield of 20hl/ha – ‘worse than 2013’ – with maturation blocked by lack of water until the August rain.

Sister property, Château Léoville Barton, which this year celebrates 200 years of Barton family ownership, likewise produced a yield of 22hl/ha, ‘one of the lowest ever’. Even the poor 2013 vintage conditions produced a yield of 27hl/ha.

Jean-Michel Laporte at Château Talbot reported a yield of 28.3hl/ha – ‘one of the lowest since 2013’.

Part of the issue was berry size, as noted by Mathieu Bordes. At Château Ducru-Beaucaillou recorded grape weights were as low as 0.6-0.8g for Cabernet Sauvignon (in a good year 1.1-1.3g) and 0.8g-1.1g for Merlot (in a good year 1.4-1.6g).

Making wine like it's 1989

Despite a lack of quantity, Jean-Michel Laporte added more hopefully that 2025, ‘could be a year full of great bargains’.

François-Xavier Maroteaux, owner of Château Branaire-Ducru, and president of the Union des Grands Crus de Bordeaux (UGCB) described the vintage as, ‘a nice ambassador for Bordeaux – a great vintage’ that ‘will be nice for people to drink early if they want to’.

He said it has ‘impressive fragrance’ and a style where, ‘concentration could have given something similar to 2022 but finally the alcohol is not the same and the style of the tannins and freshness is more similar to 2020’.

Nicolas Sinoquet, president director general of Château Gruaud Larose said they had made ‘the wines we like, fresh and silky’.

‘The vines seem to have found the right balance this year,’ he said.

'When you pick at the right time, the wines will be as they should be’ he said, adding that the 2025 style reminds him of 1989 – ‘a wine I love a lot’.

Anniversaries

The 2025 vintage coincided with impressive milestones. Château Gruaud Larose celebrated its 300th vintage and the Barton family reached 200 years at Château Léoville Barton.

Further reading from this report

• Pomerol
• St-Emilion
• Pessac-Léognan & Graves
• Dry whites
• Crus Bourgeois
• Pauillac
• St-Estèphe
• Margaux
• Sauternes

Bordeaux 2025: Top wines from St-Julien

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All Bordeaux 2024 coverage:

Full vintage analysis & top-scoring wines | How the weather conditions shaped the vintage | The growing season month by month | Wine styles: what to expect | Market conditions and pricing strategies 

Appellation analysis to come

St-Estèphe | Margaux | Pauillac | Pessac-Léognan | St-Emilion | Pomerol | Cru Bourgeois | Dry whites | Top value | Sauternes & Barsac

St-Julien 2024: Wines with a sense of classicism, elegance and finesse

Average yield: 32.5hl/ha

Variance from 2023: -54.7% (50.3hl/ha)

Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores for the top wines from St-Julien 2024

Vintage overview

Slightly higher average yields here than Pauillac and slightly lower than St-Estèphe.

The smallest and most homogeneous appellation in terms of terroir of the big four in the Médoc produced some delicious wines with an easy-drinking and approachable style.

For Bruno Borie, owner of Château Ducru-Beaucaillou, he is ‘pretty proud’ of what they have made in 2024. ‘We work with nature, it’s never easy, and there’s always a risk’ but the estate doubled vineyard workers for spraying, leaf removal and during the harvest.

‘We lost some yield earlier in the season but that meant we had better concentration in the remaining grapes,’ he said.

The estate didn’t present Le Petit Ducru for the en primeur tastings instead choosing to focus the attention on a smaller range of wines for sale.

Sara Lecompte Cuvelier, owner and director of Château Léoville-Poyferré, said the 2024s are ‘a bit like 2017 – easy to drink and digestible, but with more concentration’.

The team waited for optimal ripeness and so sacrificed some grapes to botrytis and sorted three times; in the vines, by hand then using an optical sorting machine. ‘The Cabernets just weren’t ready so we had to wait’, she said.

Their 2024 is remarkable, chewy and fleshy but still with refinement – a real success for the vintage.

The team used reverse osmosis to concentrate the wines – a method less common than chaptalisation in 2024, as it removes water and further reduces already low yields.

Technical necessity

Château Lagrange (the St-Julien, one) used the same technique despite 2024 being its ‘lowest ever yield’, at 26hl/ha, said director Matthieu Bordes. A further 10% of the grapes were removed from the sorting line and optical sorter before reverse osmosis.

François-Xavier Maroteaux, owner of Château Branaire Ducru, and new president of the Union des Grands Crus de Bordeaux, said ‘hydric stress was achieved during the summer’.

The team saw 42mm of rain during July and August compared to the more usual 90-100mm.

They sorted grapes in the vineyard, then on sorting tables, a de-stemmer, vibrating table and optical sorting machine – ‘we changed the settings for colour and size for each plot’, Maroteaux said to be as precise as possible.

At Château Gruaud Larose, technical director Virginie Sallette, said: ‘The most strategic parameter in 2024 was picking the right date to harvest.’

She added: ‘Analysis is important but the aromatics, juice and skins of tasting the grapes during the harvest were critical.’

The team used low temperatures for fermentation and chaptalised to increase the alcohol by up to 1% ABV.

For Damien Barton Sartorius, owner and general manager of Château Léoville Barton, the 2024 vintage was all about ‘hard work’. ‘We had to be careful about the rot, but we could pick when we wanted,’ he said.

‘The vintages that need more attention are those with more alcohol because extractions are much faster. Of course you don’t want to overextract in a vintage like 2024 – tannins were ripe but there’s not huge concentration.’

This year’s grand vin has 92% Cabernet Sauvignon compared to a normal amount of around 80%.

Standouts

• Château Léoville Poyferré
• Château Léoville Las Cases
• Château Ducru Beaucaillou

Highlights

• Château Gruaud Larose
• Château Léoville Barton
• Château St-Pierre
• Château Beychevelle
• Château Lagrange

Value

• Château Beychevelle
• Château Branaire Ducru
• Château Gloria

See all St-Julien 2024 en primeur wines tasted

See the top-scoring St-Julien 2024 wines

Search all 700+ Bordeaux 2024 en primeur ratings

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• Bordeaux 2024: Weather & growing conditions
• The Bordeaux 2024 growing season: Punch by punch
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Both St Julien’s proximity to the moderating effects of the Gironde river, and its homogenous gravel on clay and limestone soils, helped produce some stellar wines in 2022.

The wines really showcase the vintage’s ripe fruit with muscular frames alongside purity, clarity and striking vibrancy.

Scroll down for the top-rated St-Julien 2022 in bottle

Power play

The wines in general are slightly less soft and charming at this point than some other appellations with many still tightly knitted, firm and shy.

Indeed, for the top-scoring wines, I consistently noted the ‘power’, ‘muscles’, ‘grip’ or ‘strength on show’ in my tasting notes and commented on ‘ageing potential’ as opposed to immediate or soon drinkability.

However, if you’re looking for low alcohols in 2022 this is the place to come with all but two wines at 14% ABV or under.

Both Lagrange and Talbot’s grand vin clock in at 13.5% ABV and Talbot’s second wine Connteable is 13% ABV.

Upgrades galore

More than half the 22 St-Julien wines tasted scored 94-points or above with the top-scoring estate, Château Léoville Las Cases, upgraded from 98-points en primeur to 99 in bottle.

It’s extremely well crafted showcasing undeniable power with energy and focus. The estate has been renovating its winemaking cellar – joining the grape reception and barrel cellar – to allow the team to do more parcel by parcel, gravity-led vinifications.

Châteaux such as Ducru-Beaucaillou, Gruaud-Larose, Branaire-Ducru and Léoville Barton also shone, as did Lagrange and Léoville Poyferré.

In terms of relative value, Branaire looks like a top pick with 97-points at around €50 (£42) a bottle.

The estate is on the rise under the helm of owner François-Xavier Maroteaux and winemaker Jean-Dominique Videau and the prices have yet to climb to those of its fellow classified estates, which are at the upper end of €100.

Lagrange and Langoa Barton are also around the €50 mark.

For second wines, Pavillon de Léoville Poyferré is good buy at around €25 with succulence, juicy acidity, layers of complexity and a finessed feel.

All St-Julien 2022 in bottle scores

COMING SOON

Tasting notes for all 800 Bordeaux 2022s

plus

BORDEAUX 2022 IN BOTTLE SCORE TABLE: Top-scoring wines with 93 points or above

Individual appellation analysis and top-scoring wines

Pauillac 2022 | Margaux 2022 | St-Estèphe 2022 | Pomerol 2022 | Pessac-Léognan & Graves 2022 | St-Emilion 2022 | Cru Bourgeois 2022 | Dry and Sweet whites 2022 | Best value 2022

Top-rated St-Julien 2022 in bottle

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St-Julien is the quintessential expression of red Bordeaux, displaying grace and power without being overbearing.

It’s also the smallest of the major communes of Bordeaux and the one with the largest percentage of classified growths, as measured by acreage.

Indeed, 90% of the vineyards belong to the classified growths. St-Julien also claims to have the lowest average yield of all the major Médoc appellations, according to noted Bordeaux-authority Jane Anson.

Although Château Talbot is not the most prestigious property in St-Julien – that likely goes to Château Léoville Las Cases – Château Talbot is as characteristic of St-Julien as St-Julien is to Bordeaux.

And, as the tasting notes show, Talbot is an estate that is upping its game.

Scroll down for 14 tasting notes and scores of Château Talbot 2020-1966

Old Talbot

The estate is supposedly named after Sir John Talbot, the 1st Earl of Shrewsbury – Shakespeare’s ‘Old Talbot’, also known as ‘the English Achilles’ and ‘Terror of the French’.

A veteran of the later campaigns of the Hundred Years War and the last English lieutenant of the Duchy of Aquitaine, he was killed at the Battle of Castillon in 1453.

This disaster of English arms effectively ended the century-long conflict, and resulted in the French taking control of Bordeaux after 300 years of English rule.

The estate has passed through only a handful of owners down the centuries. A map of 1785 marks an area of St-Julien as ‘Talbot’ and there is a house (which likely became the château), owned by the Delage family.

Not long afterwards it was bought by Jean-Jacques d’Aux de Lescout and passed down to his son, Henri-Raymond, who did much to expand the property. In 1899 Arnaud d’Aux sold the estate to Albert Claverie, and Désiré Cordier purchased it in 1918.

The Cordier family still owns Château Talbot, with Nancy Cordier-Bignon and her husband Jean-Paul Bignon being the current directors. Eric Boissenot consults.

Château Talbot, classified as a 4th growth in the Médoc Classification of 1855, is one of St-Julien’s largest estates, encompassing about 110ha, in one single block around the estate.

Vines & winemaking

At about 25 metres above sea level, it is ‘high elevation’ for the Médoc. Talbot’s plantings reflect what’s grown in St-Julien in general: roughly 68% Cabernet Sauvignon, 28% Merlot, and 4% Petit Verdot.

There used to be Cabernet Franc in the blend but it was pulled out in 2007 by then-general manager Jean-Pierre Marty. His successor, Jean-Michel Laporte agrees with this move, believing that, unlike on the Right Bank, Petit Verdot is a better ‘complementary variety’ for Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot than Cabernet Franc.

The grapes for Talbot come from vines that average 40 years old. They are harvested entirely by hand.

The harvesters do an initial sorting in the vineyard, eliminating diseased parts of bunches. In the cellar, the grapes are destemmed.

Then, state-of-the-art optical and densimetric sorting removes single berries that are not up to snuff.

After fermentation, the grand vin ages in oak barrels for about 16 months in an architectural gem of a barrel cellar.

Ahead of the curve

Talbot started producing a second wine, Connétable, beginning with the 1979 vintage, before many other Médoc producers adopted that practice.

Connétable typically comes from younger vines, but still averaging 30 years old, or those situated in less desirable parcels with sandy soils.

In contrast to the grand vin, Connétable is vinified in stainless steel tanks. It usually comprises about 40% of Talbot’s annual 400,000 bottle production.

Five of Talbot’s 110ha are devoted to white grapes, Sauvignon Blanc (80%) and Sémillon, from which it makes Caillou Blanc.

The blend of the wine typically follows the proportion of each in the vineyard. Although the vines lie within the St-Julien appellation, Caillou Blanc carries the Bordeaux Blanc appellation because regulations for St-Julien only permits red grapes.

Flying under the radar

Château Talbot frequently flies under the radar and fails to receive the accolades it deserves, perhaps because it is such a large estate with such a large production.

Whatever the reasons, it is a boon for consumers because the wines are widely available and the prices, at least compared to other cru classé, are reasonable.

As you’ll see from the tasting notes below, the wines of Château Talbot have become more refined and polished over the last two decades.

Jean-Michel Laporte, who ran La Conseillante for nearly a decade and has been the general manager and winemaker at Talbot since 2018, attributes the enhanced refinement to changes that his predecessor, Jean-Pierre Marty, made – starting with the 2006 vintage.

Laporte notes that Talbot was, ‘late to embracing new technology’ and explained that Marty and his team took a more ‘modern and cleaner approach to winemaking’ at Talbot.

Laporte emphasises that when he took over at Talbot he ‘didn’t want to change the style’. He just wanted to add slightly ‘more depth to the mid-palate’.

Laporte adds modestly that he ‘adjusted some details’ in the vineyard and the cellar. His aim in general, whether at Conseillante and now at Talbot, is ‘to preserve balance, have ripe tannins, and avoid astringency’.

In the vineyard, Laporte removed leaves from the vines earlier in the growing season to achieve better maturity of the grapes and reduce the chance of disease.

He notes now that while overall average yields were fine, he found that decreasing yields in a few of the plots improved quality.

Savoury & savoured

In the cellar, he started the pumping over earlier during fermentation, when the alcohol level is low, to extract softer tannins from the skins instead of more astringent ones from the seeds.

He also slightly increased the amount of new oak barrels for ageing, from 50% to 60% to bring softer, more refined tannins to the wine.

In addition to greater refinement of the wines over the last two decades, the tasting notes indicate that the wines from Château Talbot develop beautifully with bottle age.

They deliver an engaging and alluring combination of fruitiness mixed with that illusive ‘not just fruit’, woodsy, savoury character.

Another lesson: even mature wines evolve in the glass, so they should be savoured, not rushed.

Château Talbot: 14 notes from 2020-1966

Wines are listed in order of descending vintages.

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Major Bordeaux 2023 en primeur releases today (21 May) have included Domaine de Chevalier and St-Julien fourth growth Château Beychevelle, following from Ets. Jean-Pierre Moueix wines yesterday, including highly rated Bélair-Monange 2023.

These three releases at a glance

• Domaine de Chevalier 2023 red | 95pts (Decanter) | €45.6 per bottle (ex-négociant), down 17% on 2022 | UK price £549.60 per 12x75cl in bond (IB).
• Château Beychevelle 2023 | 94pts | €60, down 11% | UK price £720 (12x75cl IB).
• Château Bélair-Monange 2023 | 98pts | £590 (6x75cl IB).
  Ex-négociant price data source: Liv-ex.

Prices have continued to drop year-on-year for a Bordeaux 2023 vintage that is emerging onto a challenging fine wine market.

Some 2022-vintage releases were relatively expensive, however, and the availability and pricing of back-vintages at each individual estate remains an important part of the relative value equation for 2023 en primeur wines.

See Decanter’s full verdict on the Bordeaux 2023 vintage, plus ratings and tasting notes on the top-scoring wines

At £720 per 12-bottle case in bond (IB), Château Beychevelle 2023 was positioned cheaper than several back-vintages of this highly regarded St-Julien fourth growth, according to Liv-ex data. 

This was despite only dropping in price by around 11% versus the 2022-vintage release, ex-négociant – demonstrating once again that year-on-year price comparisons provide just one of several useful metrics for considering whether or not to buy new-release en primeur wines.  

Decanter’s Bordeaux correspondent, Georgie Hindle, rated Beychevelle 2023 at 94 points. ‘Really excellent and very accessible, juicy and elegant,’ wrote Hindle, adding that it has the highest-ever proportion of Cabernet Sauvignon in the blend, at 61%. 

UK merchant Farr Vintners said, ‘This property always gets their price right and, once again, this ticks the en primeur box by reaching the consumer at a lower price than any other vintage in the market today.’ 

It also described the Domaine de Chevalier 2023 (red) price of around £550 (12x75cl IB) as ‘sensible’, noting, ‘This estate delivers second growth quality without the hefty price tag.’

However, Liv-ex said, ‘At this price, today’s release is one of the most expensive vintages available on the market.’ Its data suggested the 2023 vintage was similar in price to the 2016 wine (96pts, Decanter).

Decanter’s Panos Kakaviatos, who co-tasted hundreds of Bordeaux en primeur wines alongside Georgie Hindle, rated the Domaine de Chevalier 2023 en primeur wine at 95 points.

‘A serious Domaine de Chevalier red that needs at least five years of cellaring to fully reward you,’ wrote Kakaviatos.

Ets. J-P Moueix wines

UK merchant Corney & Barrow announced the release of the Ets. Jean-Pierre Moueix stable of wines at the beginning of this week, including top Right Bank names La Fleur-Pétrus, Bélair-Monange and Latour à Pomerol – among others.

Commenting on the early level of customer demand, Will Hargrove, head of fine wine at Corney & Barrow, told Decanter, ‘The Moueix wines have been well received. Not only because of the quality of the wines (most importantly) but because they have listened to the market on price.

Bélair-Monange 2023

‘It is difficult to ignore the enthusiasm that exists for Bélair-Monange and of course La Fleur-Pétrus, but there is also strong demand across the wines – Latour a Pomerol is as much an insiders wine as ever.’

Corney & Barrow offered Château Bélair-Monange 2023 at £590 per six-bottle case (IB), or £600 for a case of three magnums (3x150cl IB). 

St-Emilion’s Bélair-Monange is one of the best wines of the Bordeaux 2023 vintage, according to Decanter’s Hindle, who gave the still-in-barrel wine 98 points after tasting it en primeur.  

‘A fabulous showing for Bélair this year,’ Hindle wrote. ‘Delicious, minty, racy and chiselled; lots of power but so well balanced, charming and sophisticated.’

A 98-point rating puts the 2023 wine level with Bélair-Monange 2022 in terms of pure quality, but slightly below Bélair-Monange 2019 and 2020, which have seen been scored 99 points in-bottle.

Analyst and consultancy group Wine Lister said the price per 75cl bottle was around 31% lower than the 2022-vintage release last year, and 13% down on the 2021-vintage debut, as well as 6% cheaper than Bélair-Monange 2019.

La Fleur-Pétrus 2023

Château La Fleur-Pétrus 2023 has been among the other major releases of recent days. It was released at the equivalent of £1,500 (12x75cl IB), which Liv-ex said was down by nearly 34% on the debut price of the 2022 vintage.

Decanter’s Hindle rated the 2023 vintage at 96 points after tasting it en primeur, below the 98-point La Fleur-Pétrus 2022. ‘Lots of drinkability and charm on offer in equal measure,’ she said of the 2023 wine. ’It has power with a cherry chocolate core, minerality and lots of cool menthol elements.’

Wine Lister said, ‘The 2023 enters the market below all vintages going back to 2014. With small quantities available as per usual, this discount will no doubt help the latest release find demand amongst its loyal followers (and beyond).’ 

Other releases

Other releases in recent days have included Château Gazin 2023 at £582 (12x75cl IB). Its ex-négociant price was €48 per bottle, down around 27% year-on-year, although Liv-ex note that the 2019 and 2020 vintages could be interesting options for buyers looking at the estate’s back catalogue.

In Sauternes, Suduiraut 2023 was released en primeur on 17 May at around £519 (12x75cl IB). It was €43.40 per bottle ex-négociant, down 10% on the 2022-vintage release, but it was still one of the most expensive Suduiraut vintages on the market, showed Liv-ex data. 

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All Bordeaux 2023 coverage:

Verdict & top-scoring wines | How the weather conditions shaped the vintage | Decoding the yields | Wine styles: what to expect

Appellation analysis

St-Estèphe | Pauillac | Margaux | Pessac-Léognan | St-Emilion | Pomerol | Haut-Médoc | Dry whites | Top value | Sauternes & Barsac

St-Julien: Between power and elegance

Average yield: 50.3hl/ha

Variance from 2022: +45%

Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores for the top St-Julien en primeur 2023 wines from

Vintage overview

As with the rest of the Médoc, the wines often had firmer-than-usual tannins, with Merlot not as qualitative for final blends.

St-Julien is the smallest of the top Médoc appellations, but with the highest proportion of classified to non-classified wines, and as such tends to perform well in most vintages, with 2023 no exception.

However, as with the rest of the Médoc, the wines often had firmer than usual tannins, with final blends lacking their usual proportion of Merlot. Château Beychevelle for example, had its highest proportion ever of Cabernet Sauvignon, according to the estate.

Some estates such as Château Branaire Ducru and Château Lagrange stressed especially gentle extractions to craft lighter than usual styles of St Julien, while others, like Château Beychevelle and Château Lévoille Las Cases, opted for a more powerful style.

Château Léoville Las Cases, which featured the lowest percentage ever of Merlot in the 2023 blend, succeeded especially in that style, resembling the linear finesse, precision and subtle power of its neighbour over the border in Pauillac, Château Latour.

Others walked a tight rope between power and elegance, some succeeding more than others, with Château Léoville Barton and Léoville Poyferré both performing well in that vein.

But an overall favourite – especially in terms of price/quality ratio – is Château Gruaud Larose, a stellar 2023 whose powerful yet supple palate is imbued with both black and red berry fruit and seashell and floral freshness: a top wine for the appellation.

See the top-scoring St-Julien en primeur 2023 wines

Search all 500+ Bordeaux 2023 en primeur ratings published

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Proximity to the Gironde estuary meant that adverse effects from frost were a little less damaging here than elsewhere, with a slightly higher yield in 2021 than 2020, but mildew still caused problems for the Merlot, with a reliance on strict selection, and Cabernet (Sauvignon and Franc) as in other appellations.

Yields were around 20-30% lower than previous years in some cases.

Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores for the top St-Julien 2021 in-bottle wines

I absolutely love the Ducru-Beaucaillou and Léoville Las Cases in-bottle wines with both displaying invigorating acidity, nuance and detail with lots of terroir signatures on show – both were also quite calm and relaxed, not trying to show off which is what the best wines in 2021 have to offer.

Gruaud Larose, Léoville Barton, Branaire Ducru, Talbot and Beychevelle also performed well during the recent tastings – perhaps not to the same extent as in 2020 or 2022 with their essential natures just dialled down a touch, but all offer lovely, easy drinkability with lots of freshness and appeal.

BORDEAUX 2021 IN BOTTLE SCORE TABLE: Top-scoring 133 wines with 93 points or above

Individual appellation analysis and top-scoring wines

St-Estèphe 2021 | Margaux 2021 | Pauillac 2021| Pomerol 2021 | Pessac & Graves 2021 | St-Emilion 2021 |

See all Bordeaux 2021 in-bottle wines in score order

See tasting notes and scores for the top St-Julien 2021 in-bottle wines

See all Bordeaux 2021 in-bottle wines in score order

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• Bordeaux 2021 in bottle: overview plus top-scoring wines

St-Julien 2022

Average yield:

• Average yield 34.3hl/ha, -14.5% relative to the 10-year average of 40.1hl/ha.
• Yield in 2021 35.2hl/ha, an increase of 2% from 2020.

Rainfall during the vintage in mm and % relative to the 10 year average:

• Pre-budburst (Nov-March) 364mm (-25.0%)
• Véraison to harvest (August-October) 61.3mm (-47.7%).
• Total: 780.2mm (-12.2%)

What you find from the 2022 wines

A raft of brilliant wines from St-Julien benefitting from the moderating effects of the river and the appellation’s homogenous gravel on clay and limestone soils helping to produce wines with elegance, finesse, purity, clarity and striking vibrancy.

Both Cabernet and Merlot were able to ripen fully, coping with the intense heatwaves and drought. Harvests were lower on average with small, concentrated berries giving high tannic indexes and deep, vivid colours in the glass. Some truly exceptional – and age worthy – wines worth looking out for.

Château Leoville Las Cases is a candidate for my Médoc wine of the vintage. It has also found favour among a high number of other critics and has been highlighted as the wine to have the most potential perfect scores in En Primeur history!

See all 29 St-Julien 2022 en primeur wines tasted

Top picks:

• Château Léoville-Las Cases
• Château Branaire-Ducru
• Château Gruaud-Larose
• Château Ducru-Beaucaillou
• Château Léoville Poyferré
• Château Léoville Barton
• Château Beychevelle
• Château Langoa Barton
• Château Lagrange
• Château Saint-Pierre
• Château Talbot 
  

See the top-scoring St-Julien 2022 en primeur wines

Search all Bordeaux 2022 en primeur ratings published so far

Back to the main Bordeaux en primeur page

Stylistically St-Julien managed to produce classic, rich, opulent and fresh wines in 2020.

The average yield for St-Julien was 34.2hl/ha. In 2018 it was 42.6hl/ha, and in 2019 45.5hl/ha with a 10-year-average of 41.8hl/ha. Estates with vines nearer the Gironde faired better in terms of quantity than those further inland.

Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores for the top St-Julien 2020 in-bottle wines

Due to extreme weather conditions consistency was varied across the appellation with some clear standouts from the clay-gravel soils that managed to balance richness with structure and freshness. An extremely wet and warm spring initiated an early start to the season with a correspondingly early harvest. May saw record-breaking temperatures – the fourth highest month in eight decades – with a peak of 30 degrees centigrade. Flowering happened 10 days earlier than usual with hot, dry and drought conditions from July onwards.

Estates with clay and limestone soils were able to hold water and moisture nourishing the vines better than those on gravel soils that saw their growth stopped at one point. Much-needed rain fell in the middle of August reigniting growth, less than in St-Estephe and Pauillac but more than Margaux, although it did vary in intensity even within the appellation.

Dry and warm days and cool nights saw good conditions for harvest (among the earliest for some estates in more than two decades) with grapes able to retain freshness and acidity.

Despite lockdowns and the heath crisis leaving lingering memories in the minds of vignerons in 2020, the vintage was a particularly memorable Sara Lecompte-Cuvelier of Château Léoville Poyferré, 2ème Grand Cru Classé with her family estate celebrating a decade of ownership.

‘We are proud of our 2020. It was a challenging vintage that needed so much care and attention to detail. It is a great vintage in St-Julien combining the charm of 2019 with the depth of 2018,’ she said.

Bruno Borie owner of Château Ducru-Beaucaillou, 2ème Grand Cru Classé, St-Julien, also celebrated in 2020 with its 300 year anniversary and also notes the challenges faced by winemakers today. ‘You used to be able to take a holiday in August but the key today is to have a sufficiently large and educated team to understand the new issues and practises within the vineyard and be able to implement them quickly and efficiently’.

The estate saw the creation of a new technical team in 2016, headed by Emmanuel Bonneau, coupled with the addition of an R&D/Quality Department in 2019 headed by Cécile Dupuis. Ducru-Beaucaillou 2020 shows the work in the vineyards and personalised vinifications have paid off, keeping the signature style with greater purity, precision and depth.

Top 4 St-Julien 2020 wines:

Château Ducru-Beaucaillou, (2ème Cru Classé), 99 points

Château Gruaud-Larose, (2ème Cru Classé), 98 points

Château Léoville-Las Cases, (2ème Cru Classé), 97 points

Château Léoville Poyferré, (2ème Grand Cru Classé), 96 points

SCORE TABLE: top-scoring 349 wines with 92 points or above

Individual appellation analysis and top-scoring wines

St-Estèphe 2020| Margaux 2020 | Pauillac 2020 | Pessac & Graves 2020 | St-Emilion 2020 | Pomerol 2020 | 

See all Bordeaux 2020 in-bottle wines in score order

See tasting notes and scores for the top St-Julien 2020 in-bottle wines

The following wines all scored 90 points or above. 

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• Bordeaux 2020 in bottle: overview plus top-scoring wines

The art of mastering a job you never expected to have has been played out twice over at Château Léoville Poyferré, the family-owned and -run property situated in the north of the Médoc’s St-Julien appellation.

It is one of five second-growth classified estates in the commune, three of those sharing, perhaps confusingly, the Léoville name: Châteaux Léoville Las Cases, Léoville Barton and Léoville Poyferré. What unites the estates, apart from a shared property in the case of Las Cases and Poyferré, is also what sets them apart – each the result of family inheritances and property divisions of the original Léoville vineyard (see ‘history’, below).

Scroll down for a selection of top Léoville Poyferré wines to try

One of the most fascinating parts of the Léoville Poyferré story – and there are many – is that the current, and previous, general managers were both somewhat unexpectedly handed the reins to their family’s estates: Châteaux Léoville Poyferré, Moulin Riche, Le Crock and Cuvelier Los Andes in Argentina (see ‘family’, below).

But after an abrupt career change for one, and a life overhaul for another, Léoville Poyferré is now at the top of its game, thanks to these two unlikely candidates and their team.

Passing the baton

First was Didier Cuvelier, who in 1979 at the age of 26 left a career in accountancy to take charge after the then régisseur (vineyard manager) suddenly quit. Under the guidance of his teacher and mentor Emile Peynaud, Didier modernised winemaking facilities and implemented a vineyard restructuring and replanting programme that saw the area under vine almost double to today’s 60ha, with an additional 20ha dedicated to Moulin Riche and its second wine. After only three years, the magnificent 1982 vintage was produced, with consistency a key goal from that point on, leading up to a 100-point Robert Parker score for the 2009 vintage.

More recently, it has been Sara Lecompte Cuvelier taking Léoville Poyferré forward. Joining later in life, Sara left a career in human resources to head the estate in 2018, at the age of 50. ‘If you had told me when I was 20, or even 30, that one day I would move here, and manage the estate, I never could have imagined it,’ she says. It was only as Didier’s retirement neared that she began to imagine her involvement more permanently. Following encouragement from her husband and the Léoville Poyferré board, she moved the family from Lyon and enrolled on a wine estate management master’s course.

Sara’s sister Anne was already at Léoville Poyferré, joining in 2005 to head wine tourism and event management. Completing stints at Châteaux Malartic-Lagravière in Pessac-Léognan and Grand Corbin-Despagne in St-Emilion, Sara fully took charge on 1 January 2018.

Léoville Poyferré: a rich history

The vineyard of Léoville dates back to 1638 when it carried the name Mont-Moytié. At this time it was one of Bordeaux’s largest vineyards with more than 200ha under vine, continuing that way until the French Revolution, when one part was confiscated and then auctioned by the revolutionary government of the day. Following this partial acquisition by the Barton family in 1826, the remainder was inherited by the Marquis de Las Cases and his sister. Her share was passed on to her daughter Marie-Jeanne, wife of Baron Jean-Marie de Poyferré, creating Château Léoville Poyferré in 1840. Each Léoville then added the surname of their family to the estate, all of which were ranked as second growth in the 1855 classification. The Poyferré family sold the property to Lalande and Erlanger, wine merchant and banker respectively, in 1865. It was then bought, alongside Moulin Riche from Armand Lalande’s son-in-law, by the Cuvelier family in 1920, thus beginning the modern era for the estate.

Team spirit

‘The wines were already at a high quality [so] there were no changes to the team,’ Sara says. She retained the assistance of vineyard manager Bruno Clenet, cellarmaster Didier Thomann and oenologist and winemaker Isabelle Davin, all of whom have lengthy tenures at the estate. Clenet arrived in 1998, followed by Davin in 2000 and Thomann in 2005. Michel Rolland was brought in as consultant in 1998, and was joined by Julien Viaud in 2006. Viaud then assumed full-time consultancy duties in 2020 while also working at Cuvelier Los Andes, the family’s Argentinian estate. ‘Julien has such good energy,’ says Sara. ‘We have a very positive way of working with him.’

‘Sara’s team have a lot of experience and rigour,’ Viaud says. ‘She pushes them to be involved right up to their fingertips. They live for Léoville Poyferré, and it’s the same for me,’ he adds.

Rounded character

Of the three Léovilles, Poyferré’s wines are the most voluptuous, generally carrying a greater percentage of Merlot in the blend, and the only ones to use Petit Verdot. ‘Léoville Poyferré owns attractive parcels of very high-quality Merlot,’ Viaud explains.

The Léoville Poyferré vineyard is planted to 68% Cabernet Sauvignon, 24% Merlot, 6% Cabernet Franc and 2% Petit Verdot. ‘Our Merlot can be as concentrated as Cabernet Sauvignon and is sometimes confused for it in blind tastings,’ says Davin. Vine age is another key factor in the wine’s complexity, with vines ‘at their peak’ averaging 30-40 years. ‘Petit Verdot brings spicy aromas, Cabernet Franc finesse and elegance, Cabernet Sauvignon structure, freshness and concentration, and Merlot sexiness, plus roundness and sucrosity,’ says Sara.

Aerial analysis and soil studies led to the introduction of more specially adapted rootstocks – meticulously selected by Clenet from five different suppliers – and of different intra-plot processes, pruning and harvesting plot by plot. This is matched with increased precision in the winery, using vats of varying sizes.

While ‘the only problem with the most recent 2021 vintage was the yield’ – a low 23hl/ha, as opposed to a more normal 45hl/ha – this did allow the team to use smaller tanks, for greater precision. There are now 57 temperature-controlled stainless steel tanks (up from 35 in 2010) ranging in capacity from 15hl to 180hl. Grapes are sorted twice, manually and via an optical sorter, since 2011, before pre-maceration cold fermentation to retain freshness and purity of fruit. Malolactic fermentation takes place in new French oak before the wine is aged for 18-20 months in 80% new oak.

Cuvelier family & estates: the story

Originally from Lille in northern France, the Cuvelier family has been involved in the wine trade for more than 200 years. They started out as merchants and still operate a Bordeaux-based négociant firm, run by Olivier Cuvelier (also formerly president of the Alliance des Crus Bourgeois du Médoc, until June last year). The first winery acquisition was in 1903 with the purchase of Château Le Crock, a 32ha property in St-Estèphe, now ranked cru bourgeois exceptionnel.

Château de Camensac, a fifth growth in Haut-Médoc, was acquired in 1912 but was sold in 1964. The purchase of Châteaux Léoville Poyferré and Moulin Riche followed in 1920. The name and grapes from Moulin Riche’s single 20ha block in St-Julien were used as the second wine of Léoville Poyferre until Moulin Riche became its own grand vin in 2009, with a second wine, M de Moulin Riche, from 2018. The 65ha property Cuvelier Los Andes in Mendoza, Argentina was added in 1998.

Vintage notes

A fascinating tasting covered a mini-vertical from 2019 back to 2014, as well as 2008, 2005 and 2003 (see below). ‘The 2015 is emblematic of us and the appellation, while 2016 is the same quality as ’18, ’19 and ’20,’ Sara says, with Thomann adding: ‘The 2018 is exuberant and rich, like 2010, while 2008 needs food to complete the experience.’

When asked their favourite vintages, Sara alights on 2011, referring to it as a ‘magnifique vintage’ that wasn’t well received at the time but now outperforms 2012 in terms of consumer preference, and as such commands higher prices. For me, a highlight of the tasting was 2005, and yet Davin laments that if they had only had the technology and equipment they have now, the quality could have been even better.

All of the wines display energy and power alongside elegance and class – indeed the latter two were words I wrote on the whiteboard wall of their tasting room before ending my visit. Detail, precision, concentration and finesse, each expressed through the conditions of the vintage.

A taste of the future

Since arriving, Sara has concentrated efforts into marketing and communication, social media and tourism – prior to Covid, the estate welcomed up to 7,000 visitors annually. ‘We want to be accessible,’ she says. Also offered are international shipping services for exclusive back-vintages available only at the château.

New labels have been designed in order to better distinguish the grand vin and second wines of both Léoville Poyferré and Moulin Riche, and celebrations to mark 100 years of family ownership – put on hold due to Covid – will take place in several cities around the world later this year.

Sara’s goal to raise the estate’s reputation seems to be on track. As Matthew O’Connell, CEO of LiveTrade and head of investment at Bordeaux Index, says: ‘It’s a well-followed, top-25 château, and demand has been pretty strong – trading on our LiveTrade online platform was up around 40% in 2021.’

O’Connell adds: ‘We have a view that Léoville Poyferré outperforms in tougher vintages, for instance 2002, 2004, 2007. But buyer interest tends to be focused on the best vintages, so last year our most active trading was in 2016 and 2018, as well as 2009 and 2010.’

‘Some people call us une belle en dormis (‘a sleeping beauty’), because we’re not so known,’ says Sara. ‘All the classified estates are working to strengthen their brands and we must do the same. We take nothing for granted – you have to prove yourself.’ Judging by the quality of the 2018, 2019, 2020 vintages, and the excellent 2021, the team at Léoville Poyferré are certainly doing that.

Georgina Hindle is Decanter’s regional editor for Burgundy and Bordeaux, and editor of Decanter Premium online. She lives in Bordeaux.

Savour a second growth: the Léoville Poyferré wines to try

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St-Julien 2021

Average yield:

• 35.2hl/ha. An increase of 2% from 2020.

What you find from the 2021 wines

Proximity to the river meant that adverse effects from frost were a little less damaging here than elsewhere, with a slightly higher yield in 2021 than 2020, but mildew still caused problems for Merlot with a reliance on strict selection and Cabernet (Sauvignon and Franc) as in other appellations.

Perhaps a more even spread of quality than other appellations with a number of fantastic wines from the St-Julien gravels giving structure, aromatics and a sense of approachability.

Top picks:

• Château Ducru-Beaucaillou
• Château Léoville-Las Cases
• Château Léoville Poyferré
• Château Gruaud-Larose
• Château Léoville Barton
• Château Branaire-Ducru
• Château Beychevelle
• Château Langoa Barton
• Château Lagrange
• Clos du Marquis
• Château Saint-Pierre
• Château Talbot 
  

See the top-scoring St-Julien 2021 en primeur wines

Search all Bordeaux 2021 en primeur ratings published so far

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After tasting more than 800 Bordeaux 2019 wines in bottle, Georgie Hindle has given her verdict on how the wines are tasting now.

Here we present a quick and easy way to see tasting notes and scores for all 22 St-Julien wines tasted.

See also

Bordeaux 2019 in bottle: overview and top-scoring wines

Photo highlights: Bordeaux 2019 in bottle

Château Batailley 2020 was released this morning (21 May) at €26.5 ex-Bordeaux, a 3% increase on the 2019-vintage release price.

Decanter’s Jane Anson gave it 94 points and called it a ‘signature Batailley in that it has that essence-of-Pauillac feel’. She added, ‘Really one to look out for in this vintage.’

Batailley is being offered at £337 per bottles in bond on the international market, just 0.3% above the current market price of its 2019 vintage, according to Liv-ex.

‘With one of the smallest increases so far in this en primeur campaign, Batailley has real potential to stand out as great value for money,’ said Liv-ex.

Analyst group Wine Lister said of the 2020 release, ‘Some buyers looking to open a bottle sooner might note a little availability of both 2019 and 2018 remains at their original en primeur release prices.’

Yet it added, ‘However, on brand strength alone, this looks like a solid buy.’

Branaire-Ducru 2020 also released today, at €31.20 ex-Bordeaux, which is a 10.6% increase on the 2019 release price.

But it’s being sold at £372 (12x 75cl in bond), which puts it below the current market prices 2019 and 2018.

Jane Anson gave the wine 93 points, and said it had a ‘really excellent St-Julien character; a lovely Branaire’.

Liv-ex said the release looks ‘very well-positioned, being cheaper than the 2019 and 2018 vintages’.

Wine Lister said, ‘With a price slightly up on last year’s generous en primeur discount (while still offering significant discount on the 2018 release price) this could work, considering Branaire’s long-term upward quality and popularity trajectory.’

More Bordeaux 2020 en primeur:

Bordeaux 2020: Angélus and Pavie lead new en primeur releases

Bordeaux 2020 wines: our en primeur verdict

Anson’s top-scoring Bordeaux 2020 wines

See our Bordeaux 2020 homepage for all the latest stories

St-Julien 2020

Average yield: 34hl/ha

Individual yields varied from:

• 47hl/ha at Château Beychevelle
• 34hl/ha at Château Léoville Las Cases,
• 35hl/ha at Château Léoville Poyferré

What you find:

Whisper it, but is this the first year for ages when you might not be able to blanket buy St Julien? You’re not going to go far wrong with the main estate wines, but there are some strong tannins in the second wines that will need careful handling over ageing.

St-Julien 2020 vintage characteristics:

As with Pauillac, there were unusually small Cabernet Sauvignon berries that led to small yields. After the extremely dry July, August saw around 85mm of rain on average.

In September rainfall was similar across Margaux, Pauillac and St-Julien – around 65mm on average, falling mainly in the second half, before becoming more abundant in early October.

What’s new

The biggest changes are at Ducru Beaucaillou, with some name changes and new wines – Lalande-Borie becomes Le Petit Ducru and the new Madame de Beaucaillou AOC Haut-Medoc has arrived, using all the non St-Julien grapes owned by Bruno Borie, meaning there are no more Borie wines bottled under the Listrac or Moulis appellation (something that must smart at the Cru Bourgeois board, because Château Foucas-Borie had just been named CB Supérieur).

Château Gruaud Larose is in organic certification, expected in 2021.

Quick links for Bordeaux 2020 en primeur ratings

Search Bordeaux 2020 tasting notes published so far

Bordeaux 2020 vintage: our en primeur verdict

Top-scoring Bordeaux 2020 wines

Top St-Julien 2020 picks:

• Château La Croix Beaucaillou (with the first wine also, both standout wines in the appellation this year),
• Château Léoville Las Cases,
• Château Léoville Barton.

Value picks:

• Château La Bridane,
• Château La Croix Beaucaillou, Le Petit Ducru.
  

See the top-scoring St-Julien 2020 en primeur wines

Search all Bordeaux 2020 en primeur ratings published so far

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COMING SOON

Look out for appellation overviews for:

St-Estèphe, Pauillac, Margaux, Médoc, Haut-Médoc, Listrac, Moulis and Pessac-Léognan & Graves

Consistently impressive, the Bordeaux 2018 vintage really is a year that St-Julien showed its class.

Things were very dry, with a 75mm deficit of rain during the growing season overall. This meant that berries were harvested as some of the smallest sizes and weights on record, right down to 0.7g at Ducru Beaucaillou.

Those high alcohols that are a feature of Bordeaux 2018 wines are found again here, with highest ever found at Lagrange, Beychevelle and Léoville Las Cases.

Even so, the balance of the appellation has been maintained, and although the second wines are less consistent than the main estate wines, there are some good showings here also compared to many other appellations.

Top names to look out for:

• Château Ducru Beaucaillou
• Château Léoville Las Cases
• Château Talbot
• Château Lagrange

Value pick:

Le Petit Ducru (previously Lalande-Borie)

See Jane Anson’s tasting notes for the top-scoring St-Julien 2018 wines

You might also like: 

Full Bordeaux 2018 in bottle report

Top Bordeaux 2018 wines in bottle: Left Bank report

Top Bordeaux 2018 wines in bottle: Right Bank report

Search all St Julien 2019 wine ratings

One of the driest summers for the last 30 years in St Julien, with the berries at Lagrange the smallest for the past 36 years, and correspondingly high levels of Cabernet Sauvignon everywhere – 84% at Léoville Barton, 80% at Lagrange (the highest ever), 69% at Talbot (also highest ever), 79% at Saint-Pierre and 80% at Ducru Beaucaillou.

Scroll down to see the top-rated St Julien 2019 wines

The wines themselves were extremely consistent, a truly great year here, with lots of high scores at the 95-plus range.

The two wines up at 98 points are Las Cases and Ducru (and if either is a potential 98-100 it’s Ducru) and four at 95-97.

I would particularly draw your attention to Lagrange, one of the best ever at the estate and really one to look out for.

There are a whole host of wines at my ‘strong buy signal’ level of 94 points – Gloria for example is absolutely brilliant, as is Langoa Barton, La Croix Ducru and Beychevelle.

Yields

Average yields in the appellation were 45.5hl/ha, just a little over last year, with individual chateaux coming in at 48.5hl/ha at Léoville Poyferré, 39hl/ha at St Pierre, 40hl/ha at Talbot, 40hl/ha at Lagrange, 37hl/ha at Gloria and 50hl/ha at Beychevelle.

Changes

In terms of what’s new, the work on the new cellar at Las Cases had to be halted due to Covid-19 just as the ground was broken, but should be completed in 2021.

Over at Léoville Poyferré, the Cuveliers are celebrating 100 years of ownership, as the Cordiers did at Talbot with the 2018 vintage.

There has also been a changing of the wine guard over at Ducru Beaucaillou; they have introduced a new Haut-Médoc called Madame de Beaucaillou and changed the name of Lalande-Borie to Le Petit Ducru (as I say in the tasting note, this was one of my absolute value picks in the appellation, so I am a little sad to learn this, but the wine still tastes great).

Prices

Overall, now that prices are starting to come out, I would give a strong recommendation to some of the smaller names in St Julien, because it is looking like there are some real opportunities to get great wines at reasonable prices.

Top Scoring

Ducru Beaucaillou, Las Cases, Léoville Barton, Léoville Poyferré, Lagrange

Best Value

Gloria, Moulin de la Rose, Les Ormes, Fleur Lauga (a real success in the vintage and one to look out for).

See the top-rated St Julien 2019 wines

The following wines have all been scored 93 points and above

Not yet tasted: Château Gruaud-Larose, Château Moulin Riche, Château Lalande

Back to the main Bordeaux en primeur page

St-Julien probably has the strongest identity of any of the major Médoc communes as it’s the most compact, and the smallest. It has much in common with part of Pauillac, just to the north, but its wines tend to be more virile than most from Margaux to the south. Moreover, it is separated from Margaux by a broad strip of Haut-Médoc vineyards. The St-Julien appellation is restricted to red wines only, but two estates – Talbot and Lagrange – have long had a good reputation for their white wine as well.

It’s hard to beat St-Julien for sheer consistency. Even in Pauillac there have always been estates where quality has trailed behind that of some of their neighbours. That’s hardly surprising, since Pauillac is home to three first growths that set the highest imaginable standards. St-Julien has 11 classed growths but no first growths, which means there is no single domaine that dominates. Since 95% of the vineyards here are classified, there is a strong incentive for their proprietors to maintain standards. And the few surviving non-classified growths, such as Château du Glana and Château Gloria, are hardly slouches.

St-Julien at a glance

AP created 1936

Planted area 910ha

Dimensions 5.5km north-south, 3.5km east-west

Grape varieties Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot, Malbec, Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon

Bottles produced About 5.5m per year

Classed growths Five seconds, two thirds, four fourths

Location matters

As in other communes, many of the finest wines come from estates in close proximity to the estuary: these include Beychevelle, Ducru-Beaucaillou and the three Léoville properties.

As well as that closeness to temperature-moderating, flowing water, and thus a diminished risk of frost, they are planted on deep plateaux of Günzian gravel rich in quartz, clay and flint. Both the soils themselves and the presence of small streams (jalles) around these plateaux provide excellent drainage. In addition, the gravel can store heat which is then reflected on to the vines after sunset, a process that encourages speedier maturation.

In contrast, other estates lie further west of the estuary, including Gruaud-Larose, Lagrange and Talbot. If slightly less blessed by nature than the riverside properties, they nonetheless produce rich and long-lived wines. Philippe Dhalluin, now the director of the Mouton Rothschild group, used to run Château Branaire-Ducru, where the vineyards are dispersed, and he believes the key to the quality of St-Julien wines is the precocity of the growing season, observing that just to the south in Cussac (Haut-Médoc), the harvest is generally a week later.

Vintage characters don’t differ significantly from the rest of the southern Médoc. 2010, 2015 and 2016 are all great years, and the same is likely to be true of the 2018s and 2019s. Both 2012 and 2017 will be relatively forward, although St-Julien escaped the worst of the frost in 2017 that reduced yields severely elsewhere. 2014 wasn’t an easy vintage either, but there are many excellent wines. In contrast, 2013 should in most cases be avoided: rain and rot impacted on both yields and quality. When young, the 2011s were rather severe, but some are now opening up, although it remains a rather charmless year.

Although there is admirable consistency to the wines, they are far from uniform in their typicity. They are less filigree and poised than the best Margaux, yet less weighty and muscular than the most celebrated Pauillacs. But such generalisations can be misleading. Stylistically, even first growths in Pauillac can differ greatly, as a comparison between Latour and its neighbour Lafite demonstrates. A well-known Bordeaux broker concluded in 1815 that St-Julien wines were ‘more smooth and mellow’ than those from other communes.

Human touch

The most famous view in St-Julien is the great gateway into the Las Cases historic vineyards as you drive north towards Pauillac. If you stop your car (or bike), you’ll soon see that the gravelly sweep of the Las Cases vineyard hardly differs from that of Latour just to the north. Indeed, I doubt that in a blind tasting even experienced wine lovers would necessarily place Las Cases in St-Julien rather than Pauillac; votes would be cast for either option.

It’s not just the terroir, of course. It never is. The human hand plays its part too. The three Léoville estates – once a single property, long since divided up – are an excellent case in point. The Delon family of Léoville Las Cases has always favoured a rich, even extracted style: powerful and structured, slow to mature and very long-lived. The fruit’s weight and intensity allow the wine to survive that extraction and the high proportion of new oak.

The Cuvelier family, owners of Léoville Poyferré for a century, has worked with Michel Rolland as its consultant since 1994. As is well known, Rolland favours late harvesting and a good dose of new oak. The aim is an overtly opulent and fleshy style that is immensely satisfying, although some will prefer the more restrained and classic cedary style exhibited by Léoville Barton (and indeed by Langoa Barton too) – no late harvesting here, just a long fermentation at moderate temperatures and about 50% new oak for the ageing; there’s more austerity than in the other Léovilles, but often more perfume and finesse.

Elsewhere in Bordeaux, higher ripeness levels are beginning to blur terroir and stylistic distinctions. Super-ripe Merlots, the signature of St-Emilion, can taste alike, which is not to deny the quality of these wines, but to signal a growing lack of nuance. Somehow St-Julien, aided by the high proportion of Cabernet Sauvignon in the vineyards, has managed to retain a good deal of the typicity of each growth.

Yet no one is resting on their laurels. Proprietors are investing significantly. Beychevelle, under the ownership of two large drinks groups, has lagged slightly behind the other top properties, but a new vat room and cellar was built in 2015; and in 2010 a new vat room was completed at Léoville Poyferré. At Talbot, modern cellars were completed in 2013, and the Barton family will soon begin major cellar work at its two estates.

Fair pricing

Despite the prestige of the region, some estates continue to make reasonably priced wines within the context of top Bordeaux. Châteaux Léoville and Langoa Barton used to be released at bargain prices, but Anthony Barton realised that prices would often double on the secondary market, enriching middlemen but not those who actually made the wine. So prices rose, quite understandably. Branaire-Ducru, while more expensive than it used to be, is now a wine of exceptional quality at a fair price. Lagrange too, under Japanese ownership, and Talbot have never been greedily priced.

As has already been mentioned, hardly any non-classed growths remain. The Meffre family produces a reliable wine at Château Glana; it’s a bit four-square, but well balanced and suited to medium-term ageing. Château Gloria is a strange wine, blended from small parcels throughout the commune. Henri Martin created the property from scratch from the 1940s by buying plots mostly from classed growths. It’s the wine equivalent of a patchwork quilt, and recent vintages have been very attractive.

Château Lalande-Borie is an off-cut too, having been part of Lagrange until 1970, when it was sold to the Bories of Ducru-Beaucaillou. Charming and relatively light, it’s a less complex shadow of Ducru itself. I have a soft spot for Château Moulin de la Rose, a 5ha property that belongs to Jean-François Delon. Rather grippy in the past, it is now more accessible.

Henri Martin also worked his magic as a collector of vineyards with Château Saint-Pierre. By 1981 the château and what was left of its vineyard were acquired by Martin, who exchanged parcels with neighbours and reconstituted the domaine. His son-in-law Jean-Louis Triaud runs both Saint-Pierre and Gloria, and their production is united in a flash modern winery that was designed by Triaud’s architect brother, Alain. Saint-Pierre can be excellent, if less consistent than the very best properties.

It’s hard to imagine that any claret lover would be disappointed by a bottle of château-bottled St-Julien. This commune really is a sweet spot for classic Left Bank Bordeaux, delivering wines that invariably succeed in combining fruit, structure and finesse. There are none of the significant variations in style and quality that can affect Margaux or St-Estèphe, for example.

Best of all, no estate is standing still, as the new investments confirm. Most properties make superlative wines, but aspire to do even better. What more could one ask?

St-Julien: the classed growths

Second growths

Ducru-Beaucaillou Owned since 1941 by the Borie family, who are Bordeaux merchants, Ducru has been making delectable wines for many years, blending opulence and vibrancy.

Gruaud-Larose Most of the 82ha vineyard surrounds the château on a well-drained gravel plateau. Some clay in the soil probably explains the wine’s richness and generosity.

Léoville Barton Still inhabited by the Barton family, who bought it in 1826. A benchmark for classic St-Julien, with no excesses but impeccable balance, as well as weight.

Léoville Las Cases The Delons have long believed this wine is of first-growth quality, and in some vintages it’s hard to disagree. Weighty, voluptuous and very long-lived.

Léoville Poyferré Late harvesting and ample new oak result in a sumptuous and seductive style. Moulin Riche comes from a separate vineyard further west and, with more Merlot, offers more immediate fruit and lushness.

Third growths

Lagrange With 125ha under vine, the largest estate in St-Julien, owned since 1983 by Suntory of Japan. A very reliable wine, and its second label, Les Fiefs de Lagrange, is fruity and charming.

Langoa Barton Overshadowed by its neighbour Léoville Barton, this is a fine wine in its own right that should not be underestimated. It has a high proportion of Cabernet Sauvignon to give structure and ageability.

Fourth growths

Beychevelle An 18th-century palace near the estuary with 90ha of vines. Long under corporate ownership, quality could be humdrum, but since 2005 this classically styled claret has improved.

Branaire-Ducru Long ago the vineyards were part of the Beychevelle estate. In 1988, it was bought by its present owners, the Maroteaux family, who have raised its profile. Lovely wines with polish and finesse. Saint-Pierre An ancient property, but in its modern form just 40 years old. However, the vines are old and quality is often very high, though with less consistency than at some other estates.

Talbot Like Gruaud-Larose, this very large estate was acquired by Bordeaux merchant Désiré Cordier in 1917, but unlike Gruaud it remains in the family. With more sand in the soil, the wines can have less depth and longevity but are good value and well balanced.

Stephen Brook’s dozen: St-Julien at its best

See all St-Julien 2017 wines re-tasted in bottle

Read Jane Anson’s full Left Bank 2017 in bottle report

All reviews published online exclusively for Premium subscribers

As with Pauillac, very few grapes were lost to frost in the St-Julien 2017 vintage.Estates sitting along the corridor of the Garonne river survived the late spring frosts particularly well, although those set a little further back, such as Lagrange, did more issues.There are many successes here, because St-Julien estates know how to play to elegance and balance in these kind of vintages.Overall, there is plenty of beautiful classicism and precision to be found in this appellation, and alcohols tend to be fairly restrained.

The best Left Bank wines in the Bordeaux 2017 vintage are sappy and mouth-watering. They will only need another five to eight years in bottle, not the full 10 required in years like 2016.

Look out for: Château Ducru Beaucaillou, Château Leoville Poyferré, Château Leoville Barton.

See Jane Anson’s top St-Julien 2017 wines re-tasted in bottle

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St-Julien was always one of the most balanced appellations of the Médoc, with complexity, elegance and finesse. It covers just 5km north to south and, at 910ha, is one third of the size of Pauillac – though not so far off from Pomerol, which clocks in today at 800ha.

The appellation has just 19 winemakers, compared to 135 in Pomerol, giving you some idea of the difference in scale. They are almost all household names, and 11 are 1855 Crus Classés (five second growths, two third, four fourth), who collectively own around 90% of the appellations’ vines.

Tasting all five of the second growths over two vintages that are more than 30 years old was always going to be pretty special. To up the stakes, I picked one unquestionably stand-out vintage, the 1986, seen as the best in the decade on the Left Bank after 1982, and another year with a little less renown, the 1988 – still a fine vintage, but with less concentration of tannins and fruits. These are prestigious classified châteaux that we expect to age well, and that ask high prices for their bottles, so it seemed worth comparing how they have evolved in a richly tannic year against a more classic vintage.

The vintages

1986 is clearly the legendary vintage out of these two years, and to be honest in all examples it showed the most concentration of fruit. In terms of weather, the vintage started off cold, with vine development around a month late by the end of April, but from there the weather turned dry and warm, with August being particularly hot. The little rainfall in September was welcome rather than disruptive, at least in the Médoc where the grapes could continue to ripen through October.

It was also the biggest vintage since the Second World War, producing plenty of concentrated wines with power and tannins that were always going to age well, particularly in an appellation like St-Julien; the Bordeaux school of oenology cheerfully called it ‘a year that delivered both quantity and quality’. But even knowing this, it was absolutely a pleasure to see just how well they were all holding on.

Reading through the comments from the Bordeaux school of oenology for 1988, in contrast, is interesting for a different reason. It was a year that saw almost the whole average annual rainfall by the end of June, with 924mm of rain from November 1987 to June 1988, compared to average of 585mm, followed by a dry summer and a good harvest – factors that are extremely similar to the pattern that we saw in 2018.

Similarly to 2018, the weather meant extremely thick skins and grapes that were rich in tannins and colour compounds. But it also meant uneven ripening, some high acidities and the threat of rot – all of which were more difficult to cope with 30 years ago than in 2018. Particularly fascinating in the report were the lines praising the treatments available against rot, something that you would never see openly celebrated today, even if they continue to be widely used.

See also: Jane Anson’s verdict on St-Julien 2018 en primeur – exclusive to Decanter Premium members

The châteaux

There are just 14 1855 second growths in total, and five of them are in the commune of St-Julien – Gruaud Larose, Ducru Beaucaillou and the three Léovilles of Barton, Poyferré and Las Cases – showing just how impressively consistent this appellation is. The deep gravel soils and location grazing the river Garonne both help bring complexity and longevity to the wines.

Of the five estates tasted, four have the same owner today as they did back in 1986, so the Borie family at Ducru (although passing from Jean-Eugène to Bruno today), the Bartons at Léoville Barton (from Anthony in 1986 to Lilian, Damian and Melanie today), the Delon family at Las Cases (then Michel Delon, now Jean-Hubert) and the Cuveliers at Poyferré (Didier at the time, only just handing over to Sara Lecompte-Cuvelier last year).

Only Gruaud Larose has seen a change of ownership from the Cordiers to the Merlauts – although Gruaud Larose, in contrast, has remained the same size, at 82ha of vines, while all the others have all expanded. Ducru is up from 50ha to 75ha, Barton from 40ha to 51ha, Las Cases from 85ha to 98ha and Poyferré from 60ha to 80ha.

These were years when things were still pretty traditional in vineyard and cellar, even for second growths, but starting to change. Huge planting programmes were underway, particularly at Poyferré, as money started to flow back into the prestigious Bordeaux estates after the difficult years of the 1970s. Modern techniques for sorting and vinification were appearing, with Las Cases leading the way in green harvesting, and Poyferré in malolactic in barrel. Levels of new oak were edging upwards and modern techniques, such as sorting tables, were becoming the rule rather than the exception.

Investments take time to come through of course, and it was clear that some estates had less depth and concentration than similar vintages would see today – but what really stood out from these ten bottles was just how drinkable they were. They more than stood up to 30 years of ageing, and although they had softened, none were past it (although there were two corked bottles that had to be replaced).

One clear 100 point wine, and two others that stood as absolutely exceptional at 97 points, but even the gentler ones had the savoury-fruit and mouthwatering finish that makes St-Julien such a sure bet.

The (actual) glasses of the 1988 Léoville Barton and the 1986 Léoville Las Cases with a freshly-made 67 Pall Mall burger after the tasting had finished more than underlined the point.

Comparing St-Julien 1986 and 1988: The wines

See scores for all St-Julien 2018 wines tasted so far

The ripest Cabernets many estates have seen

Château Ducru-Beaucaillou’s weather station showed rainfall was 75mm down on the 30-year average from 1 November 2017 to 21 October 2018, and 39mm down during the Bordeaux 2018 growing season from mid-April to mid-October.

Add in mildew, then extensive heat – with 35 days above 30°C and six days above 35°C – plus the wind that blew in October; it’s no surprise to see that Cabernets got riper than ever seen. I’ve reported on a similar picture in nearby Pauillac and St-Estèphe.Merlots had thick skins, small berries and great concentration.You will definitely see high alcohols in some of the wines, such as 14.5% abv at Beychevelle, 14.6% at Lagrange and 14.5% at Léoville-Las-Cases. All three of those estates have record high alcohols in their first wines in 2018.

Las Cases said that some Cabernet had higher alcohol levels than Merlot for the first time.

Estates also saw high phenolic ripeness. La Croix de Ducru-Beaucaillou, for example, was up at 96 on the total polyphenol index (IPT), which is a measure of tannin levels. That’s high compared to classic Left Bank Bordeaux levels.

Put all of this together and you have St-Julien 2018 wines where the power can build up sneakily through the palate.

This is balanced by pretty generous yields, which were 42.6 hectolitres per hectare on average in the appellation but much higher for some. Beychevelle was at 55hl/ha, for instance.

As a result, I found that the vast majority of en primeur wines in St-Julien were silky and really rather gorgeous.

I thought it was an impressive showing from this appellation, and there was great consistency, as ever, among the first wines. However, I was less impressed with the second wines.

St-Julien 2018 wines potentially offering great value: Glana, Moulin Riche.

Top scoring wines: Léoville Las Cases, Ducru-Beaucaillou, Léoville-Barton.

Top scoring St-Julien 2018 wines

The following wines scored 94 points and above. See all St-Julien 2018 wines here.

Back to the main Bordeaux en primeur page

Jane Anson examines the DNA of Léoville Las Cases wines following a tasting of older vintages at the Decanter Shanghai Fine Wine Encounter. Scroll down to go straight to the tasting notes .

Do you have to be a masochist to love Léoville Las Cases wines?

I have asked myself that a few times when drinking, say, a 2000 or a 2005 that in most properties would be ripe for cracking open but with Léoville requires some finger drumming and a few more years in the cellar.Monolithic, concentrated, powerful and austere; these are all words that you are going to read over and over in tasting descriptions of this estate.And yet, kick off your shoes, pull up a chair and let your nose hover over the glass. You’re going to find those intense black fruits and muscular tannins slowly nudging forward towards something exceptional and, most importantly, edging towards an explanation of just why we love the great Bordeaux wines of the Médoc.

As you might expect, the stubbornness of Léoville Las Cases in terms of its ageing ability comes as no surprise to owner Jean-Hubert Delon.

It’s at least partly why, since 1959, the estate has kept 50% of each vintage back after en primeur to release at a later date.

It has sometimes held back an even higher proportion – only releasing a tiny amount of the 2000 vintage en primeur, for example. The 2001 was not released during the en primeur campaign.

Léoville Las Cases must have a larger stock of old vintages than any other property in Bordeaux, and for a wine like this you can understand why.

Located at the northernmost point of St-Julien, close to the river, Léoville Las Cases arguably shares more characteristics with neighbouring Château Latour in Pauillac than with its more southerly St-Julien siblings.

These are wines that only relax into their true character with serious bottle age.

All of which makes tasting the range of wines produced from these soils particularly illuminating.

About this tasting

This tasting was held with sales director Florent Genty during the Shanghai Fine Wine Encounter in November 2018 and showcased a number of vintages from three of the estate’s wines.

We began with the estate’s second wine, Le Petit Lion, launched in 2007 and partly from young vines within the famous walled Clos that forms the heart of the estate. It is located right next to Latour’s own Enclos.

Vines here are farmed organically, although are not currently certified organic, and are planted on gravel soils that go up to 10 metres deep.

Petit Lion is a blend of the oldest Merlots of the estate, with vines up to 80 years old, and some of the youngest Cabernet Sauvignons, which are not yet old enough to be included in the main wine.

The tasting then moved on to two vintages of Clos du Marquis, a separate wine from distinct soils set a little further back from the river. We finished with five vintages of the first wine back to 1989.

A single vertical won’t answer the question of why Léoville Las Cases wines are able to out-live many others in Bordeaux, but it helps begin to unpick the puzzle.

Léoville Las Cases in brief

• Second growth in the 1855 Classification
• Owner: Jean-Hubert Delon
• Managing director: Pierre Graffeuille
• Estate size: 98 hectares of vineyard, with 45% going to first wine and 10% to second wine, Le Petit Lion
• Clos de Marquis is a separate wine from different vines, with Petite Marquise as its 2nd wine.
• Plantings: 67% Cabernet Sauvignon, 23% Merlot, 10% Cabernet Franc

Tasting Léoville Las Cases wines back to 1989

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'The epitome of the graceful, elegant wines that make this appellation so well loved,' says Jane Anson...

Anson: Tasting Château Branaire-Ducru

It’s now been just over one year since François-Xavier Maroteaux took over Château Branaire-Ducru following the death of his father Patrick. And just over 30 years since the Maroteaux family arrived in St-Julien, back in 1988.

So it seemed like a good time to catch up with the estate, on a sunny but cold Friday just before Christmas.

We sat down, along with long-term technical director Jean-Dominique Videau, for a vertical tasting of 12 vintages back to 1988, along with three more recent years of the second wine Duluc – a wine introduced on the Maroteaux family’s arrival to signal a serious intention to move quality upwards.

Scroll down for Jane Anson’s tasting notes

There is always something special about heading to St-Julien for a tasting, and I have been lucky enough to do these a few times over the past five years with Branaire, often with the wonderfully kind and much missed Patrick Maroteaux.

It’s an estate that seems perfectly rooted in its landscape, the epitome of the graceful, elegant wines that make this appellation so well loved – so much so, perhaps, that Branaire does not always set the world on fire, and gets overlooked in favour of flashier, or more obviously impactful Left Bank wines.

The vertical passed through the last 10 years, then moved on to three particularly interesting wines from the 20 years before that. The wonderful 2005, which came two years after Videau had taken over as technical director from Philippe Dhalluin, the 1996 – a great vintage for the Left Bank – and the 1988, which marked their inaugural vintage. The last three in particular underlined how this is a wine that comes into its own with some bottling ageing, often delivering a clear break from its early years, when it can be a little subdued.

What is very clear is that it’s a mistake to dismiss Branaire as the quiet cousin in St-Julien. The 2005 is close to the perfect expression of why you go to St-Julien – aromatic complexity combined with an effortless sense of enjoyment, nothing out of place, nothing trying too hard. And recent years have seen a further shaking up of its overly-traditional side.

The wines are still never overpowering, and a signature freshness continues to run through the vintages, but there is a clearer sense of richness and depth of expression, and a little more willingness to seduce rather than simply welcome.

Château Branaire-Ducru fact file

1855 4th Growth

60ha of vines on gravel soils located almost entirely in the Beychevelle commune.

63% Cabernet Sauvignon, 28% Merlot, 1% Petit Verdot, 3% Cabernet Franc

60-65% new oak depending on vintage

Eric Boissenot consultant

See Jane Anson's scores for St-Julien 2016 wines, re-tasted in bottle...

See all St-Julien 2016 wines re-tasted in bottle here

Read Jane Anson’s full Bordeaux 2016 in bottle report here

All reviews published online exclusively for Premium subscribers

Introduction copy by Ellie Douglas.

St-Julien 2016 wines have ‘a construction and architecture that feels very much like 2010,’ said Jane Anson in her re-assessment of Bordeaux 2016 wines this month.

Wines showed ‘gorgeous fruit densities on display, and some that were truly exceptional’, she said.

When tasting the wine en primeur, Anson had said it was possibly her favourite appellation, ‘because the wines are the epitome of what you want from St-Julien: nuanced, complex, elegant, sculptured but powerful.’

Anson scored Château Léoville Las Cases 100 points in the re-tasting, calling it her ‘wine of the vintage’.

Highlights from St-Julien in 2016

See all St-Julien 2016 wines re-tasted in bottle here

Full report: Bordeaux 2016 wines re-tasted in the bottle

The three Léovilles: Profile and tasting notes

All St-Julien wine reviews

A quiet revolution has taken place at this St-Julien fourth growth, reports Jane Anson, who recently tasted a decade of its vintages. Premium members can read Jane's full analysis and tasting notes on recent vintages below.

Now I hate to torpedo a good story, but you know the one about Château Beychevelle being named because of the ‘baisse la voile’ legend, when all ships passing in front of the estate in the 16^th century had to lower their sails in honour of then-owner Duc d’Epernon?

Well it’s been slightly… ruined for me by two second-hand bookshop finds (I have an ever growing collection of dog-eared French books on Bordeaux).The first is a biography of Jean-Louis de Nogaret de la Valette (the full name of the Duc d’Epernon) in which it’s hard to find any suggestion that the duke himself ordered the sails to be lowered (although he sounds like he would have been extremely happy that the story was being promulgated).

And the second is by Bordeaux négociant Bernard Ginestet on the appellation of St-Julien in which he suggests that the name Beychevelle had been attached to the estate at least 200 years before the grand old duke of Epernon came along.He says that it was being used back in the 1300s, when Guyenne was a duchy of the English crown because, most likely, boats entering the port at this particular bend of the river needed to lower their sails simply to manoeuvre against the prevailing winds that can be particularly strong at this point – something that perhaps also explains why the entire commune is called Beychevelle, not just the château.

Anyway, I guess whichever version we believe, there is no doubt that the boat on Beychevelle’s label does have a bonafide story attached, even if it is not quite the one that we have been told.

And the ship is still taking pride of place in the newly-renovated estate, proudly displayed above the door to the cellars that were unveiled for the 2016 harvest and that represent a château that is one of the most vibrant in Bordeaux right now.

Beychevelle was one of the few to find a market during the recent en primeur campaign, without causing too much anguish along the way.

Its new vat room suggests a confidence that is hard to ignore. It faces the busy D2 Route des Châteaux and has floor to ceiling glass windows that allow passing motorists to see the inner workings of the winemaking.

The 1855 4^th Growth is shaking off its ‘reliable but uninspiring’ reputation, making this a fascinating time to do a vertical looking at both the first wine of Beychevelle, its second wine Amiral de Beychevelle and the Haut-Médoc Château Beaumont.

This is a property that has sometimes fought to be recognised as truly typical of St-Julien, because it has the highest proportion of Merlot of any of the classified estates in the appellation at 40% in the vineyard.

As of 2018, following field grafting of Cabernet Franc vines over to Cabernet Sauvignon, the rest of the vineyard is 54% Cabernet Sauvignon, 2% Cabernet Franc and 4% Petit Verdot.

And it’s still true that Beychevelle doesn’t always shout the loudest, but it is now showing the benefits of incremental changes under director Philippe Blanc and technical director Romain Ducolomb.

Originally from Burgundy, Ducolomb studied at Dijon university and joined Beychevelle in 2012 fresh from Château Clinet in Pomerol.

Together they have introduced a raft of softer vinification and greater precision techniques. These include:

• malolactic in barrel;
• gravity-fed winemaking;
• manual punching down;
• keeping the wine on the lees throughout ageing;
• and far more precise plot work in the vineyards, where no herbicides have been used since 2005.

Worth noting perhaps that Beychevelle, like Lafite Rothschild further north, has a few vines that are located outside of its appellation; along with neighbouring estates Ducru Beaucaillou and Branaire Ducru.

The Beychevelle plot is located in Cussac, just over the border in AOC Haut-Médoc, and goes entirely into Amiral.

The new cellar has doubled the amount of vat space available, and the 2016 wine stands as a brilliant testimony to what is possible, with the 2017 not far behind.

A new wine? 

There is also a third wine on the horizon, even if it is not yet bottled under that name.

As of 2013, Beychevelle has gone the way of several other estates, such as Latour, Margaux and Montrose, in being extra selective for its second wine. We can expect the policy to become official soon.

An inevitable development perhaps, but I would suggest that we should not let it overshadow the Beaumont, which is likely to be similarly priced and offers some brilliant drinking.

How Jane Anson rated recent Beychevelle vintages

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Read an in-depth report on the evolution of this St-Julien estate's style with tasting notes and fresh ratings for more than 25 vintages; published exclusively for Premium members.

There are certain estates across Bordeaux that come with an unshakeable personality, whatever the vintage.

Léoville Poyferré is undoubtedly one of them, and it is more than happy to play up its non-conformist image.

It chose Michel Rolland as consultant in the mid-1980s (his second consultancy gig in the Médoc after the CVBG properties I believe), has always harvested on the later end of the scale and with lower yields than you normally find in the Médoc; usually 35hl/h compared to the usual 45hl/h.

It also blends at the end of ageing, rather than the beginning, and generally includes an unusually high proportion of Merlot compared to its neighbours, while also

ensuring that malolactic fermentation takes place in new oak barrels.With all of this, you can expect a more voluptuous take on the St-Julien appellation at Poyferré. This is a wine that is not afraid to proclaim its pleasure in finding itself in the appellation, but nor is it constrained by its classification.

Tasting through a six-decade vertical is a fascinating way to unpick whether Poyferré’s personality has been imposed by owner Didier Cuvelier, who took over the family estate in 1979, or whether it is inbuilt in the soils.

We had some great pairings to look at – 2015/16, 2009/10, 2000/01, 1995/96 and 1982/83, before finishing up with a 1961.

We were extremely lucky to taste so far back, because the estate lost a large number of older vintages following a break-in at the cellars in the 1960s.

The number of exceptional vintages made it even more impressive when the standouts also included less lauded years.

For me, 2011 was at the top of that particular list and is thoroughly worth getting hold of and trying out for yourself.

This is also a particularly interesting moment to assess Poyferré, because Cuvelier handed over to his cousin and new managing director Sara Lecompte-Cuvelier as of 2017 for the day-to-day running of the property. That said, I’m happy to report that I have never been there without still seeing Didier also.

What is immediately clear on studying the vineyard map is that a large part of this personality is in the DNA.

Poyferré today has its 80ha of vines spread out across the St-Julien commune, although none in the appellation’s other commune of Beychevelle.

This gives it the most complex and varied terroir of the three Second Growths that once formed Lionville estate. Didier says they have examples of all the appellation’s soils types in the vineyard.

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As the plots stray off the gravelly Léoville plateau, there is a touch more clay on some of the south-facing slopes, making them perfect for ripening Merlot.

Don’t forget that this is St-Julien, though, and Cabernet Sauvignon still rules.

I don’t have the exact proportions of the blend for each of the vintages, but the vineyards today are 65% Cabernet Sauvignon, 23% Merlot, 4% Cabernet Franc and 8% Petit Verdot.

You can expect the blends to be relatively consistent from this, although there will have been more Merlot in the older vintages. Remember that this is a château that saw many of its legendary years in the 1920s, and was playing catchup until Didier arrived and began serious investment.

We can expect the proportion of Cabernet Sauvignon vines to rise further over the next decade.

Even today, just 55% of production makes the grand vin in an average year, and the selection for this almost always favours Cabernet Sauvignon.

Petit Verdot has been a staple addition at Poyferré for decades – neither Barton nor Las Cases has any – underlining those exotic spices and richly-layered depths.

And what is abundantly clear is that like all great wines, Poyferré has its signature.

Cedar, cigar box, resin, raspberry, fleshy black fruits, dark spices and a freshness that survives all of the embracing of more modern techniques in the vineyard and cellar.

There is no mistaking those Médoc tannins at any point, and the finesse and balance that makes St-Julien such a world-beating appellation is here in spades.

There were moments in the 2000s that the winemaking strayed too far for me, and I found at that point that I almost always preferred the cooler rather than the hotter years.

So in this tasting, for me, the 2001 blew the 2003 out of the water, and even the 2011 edges the 2009 right now, possibly because they have a tendency to ‘go large or go home at this property.

But as I say in the tasting notes for the 2000 vintage, one of the joys of Léoville Poyferré is its willingness to go all out to make wines that are generous and that make you smile.

You get the sense that they enjoy their good fortune and that makes it impossible to resist enjoying it too.

Léoville Poyferré: Full tasting notes and ratings

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See Jane Anson's scores and tasting notes for the St-Julien 2017 wines, tasted en primeur...

St-Julien, along with its Médoc cousins Pauillac and St-Estèphe, had many successes in a Bordeaux 2017 vintage that presented several challenges, said Jane Anson in her Bordeaux 2017 vintage overview.

Large swathes of Médoc avoided the worst of the late spring frosts that will be a hallmark of the year.

Scroll down to see all St-Julien wines scoring at least 90 points

Anson picked out Château Ducru-Beaucaillou as ‘a serious contender for the top St-Julien in 2017.’Anson also observed that both Ducru-Beaucaillou and Château Léoville Las Cases barrel samples had strong aromatics – like many of the top wines in Margaux 2017.

For Château Léoville Poyferré, it was a ‘success in the vintage, underlining again that St-Julien has had an extremely lucky 2017’.

• See also: Anson’s Bordeaux 2017 overview

• See also: The three Léovilles

Top St-Julien 2017 wines 90 points and above:

See all St-Julien 2017 wines here

Back to the main Bordeaux en primeur page

When was the last time you picked up a St-Julien wine for 14 euros at the cellar door? Jane Anson visits to Château Finegrave, one of the last independent, small producers in this well known Bordeaux appellation.

Château Finegrave: behind the scenes in St-Julien, Bordeaux

A spider web of wooden wine box-ends, the kind that end up as cheese boards in random kitchen drawers, hangs on the wall as you walk in through the cellar door.

The outer boards bear the legends Talbot, Léoville Barton, Langoa Barton, Léoville Poyferré, Léoville Las Cases, Beychevelle. In the middle of them, the spider at the centre of the web, is a framed label blown up to the same size as the box-ends and clearly printed out from a home office. It reads Château Finegrave.

On reflection, scratch the spider imagery. A hen surrounded by foxes might be more accurate.

Château Finegrave is an anomaly in today’s St-Julien, a puddle of 8,000 vines covering 85 ‘ares’ owned by retired husband and wife Fidel and Marie-Claude Elicheche. Physically surrounded by the six classified estates that are hanging on the cellar wall, Finegrave is one of just two independent small producers left in the appellation. It’s both no small feat and an exposed place to be.

Ten years ago, St-Julien’s 919 hectares of vines were 85% owned by classified châteaux, with around 10 small producers alongside the 11 1855 classified growths.

Today, that figure has climbed to around 95% of classified vines, with just Elicheche at Finegrave and Jean-François Fillastre at the 1.32 hectare Domaine du Jaugaret left outside of the big names (I am including Gloria and any secondary properties owned by classified estates as among the big guns).

You can still see a few other châteaux signs displayed on the road side, but they seem to have stopped trading. Certainly there are more than a few ‘company dissolved’ notices logged with Bordeaux’s commercial court.

‘We try not to think about land prices’

Those few vines at Finegrave – located around a 1km walk from the cellars and aged between 80 and 120 years old – will be approaching €1m in value. As you might expect, Elicheche receives calls to sell up every few months.

‘But we always say no,’ he confirms cheerfully.

Fidel Elicheche wasn’t born in St-Julien. He is instead from the village of Espelette in the French Basque that is best known for its fiery red peppers, and he still speaks with the ripely-accented French of the Pryénées. He inherited Finegrave with his wife after the death of her father André Leclerc, who was long-time manager at Léoville Barton and who bought the majority of the vines around 60 years ago, when you could pick up land in St-Julien for sums that would probably get you a case of wine today. Leclerc was the one that extended the vineyard around 30 years later, but today’s owners are very definitely stewards rather than expansionists.

‘We try not to think about the price of the land too much. Rather we think about the pleasure that it brings us, and hope that our children might want to take over from us one day.’

For now the neighbours, far from pressuring Elicheche, are helping him. Before retirement, he spent the last 20 years as a member of the vineyard team (mainly tractor driver) at Gruaud Larose. Today Patrick Frédéric, the vineyard manager at Gruaud Larose, and his team work the vines on his behalf during the year. In return, Elicheche continues to help prepare the treatments that will be sprayed in the vineyards of the 1855 2nd growth.

Harvesting

Harvesting is usually wrapped up with a morning’s work, and is carried out by family members and friends using equipment borrowed from the neighbours. Once the grapes are in, vinification takes place in cellars that are more accurately described as an outhouse in his garden, set on a tiny side road that runs in a straggly, unobtrusive parallel to the D2. You take a step down into the vinification and ageing cellar (they are one and the same) that has been dug out two metres into the earth by Eliceche’s father in law. Here three cement vats sized between 85 and 50 hectolitres vinify just about enough wine to fill the 16 barrels that come from Gruaud Larose after a year’s usage. Just two new oak barrels are bought each year. Bottling takes place back in the main room, with a machine borrowed from Château Beychevelle care of director Philippe Blanc. The two men have been longtime organisers of the Médoc Marathon, and are good friends.

Cult following

With all of this, around 6,600 bottles are produced at Finegrave in a good year. This is not a road with natural footfall, but Finegrave has plenty of visitors who manage to find the path to its door. A few years ago the family took the distribution back from négociants (they had sold 50% through the Place de Bordeaux) and now the entire crop gets sold direct, mainly to friends and family but also to restaurants, in the months following bottling. That typically means from the September two years after harvest. By March every bottle will be gone.

Questioning Elicheche about his future, it turns out that the foxes might not come in the shape of neighbouring classified châteaux, but instead that of the national appellations’ body, the INAO. Resisting offers of enrichment is easier, perhaps, than dealing with France’s increasingly draconian winemaking rules in AOCs like St-Julien. You hear the same thing down the road at Domaine du Jaugaret.

The wines

All this aside, how is the wine? The vintage I tried was Château Finegrave 2013, so perhaps not the best one to judge, but it made for an extremely enjoyable Sunday lunch accompaniment to roast chicken. Made from a blend of 75% Cabernet Sauvignon and 25% Merlot, it may have lacked the intensity and complexity of a Léoville Las Cases, but it was a good example of a silky-tannined classic claret that was not only from St-Julien but tasted like it.

And, seriously, when was the last time you bought one of those for €14 from the cellar door?

Updated 21 January 2016 to replace 850 ares with ’85’ ares.

• READ: Jane Anson’s favourite fine wines of 2015

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The feeling was that 2014 was a Cabernet vintage due to the long hangtime that Cabernets Sauvignon and Franc love, and this certainly favoured the Left Bank. However, looking at the proportion of Merlot now planted in the Médoc, this was not the sole cause for quality. Words like ‘clarity’, ‘precision’, ‘fragrance’ and ‘freshness’ abounded in my notes and in the leaflets produced by the châteaux, and while Merlot’s ripe black fruits were present, blending perfectly with the firmer Cabernets, words like ‘plummy’, ‘rich’ and ‘robust’ were hardly mentioned.

The wines in general have lovely fruit, a natural density and tannins that support but do not overwhelm, creating wines that express their origins and impress by so doing. In the Médoc, the elegance of Margaux came through, but fewer great wines than expected; St-Julien was as homogenous as ever as a commune, while the three Léovilles were as different as usual with some lesser crus coming on strong. Further north, there were some great successes in Pauillac, a vast improvement on an uneven 2013, while the variety on offer in St-Estèphe made this, for me, the commune of the vintage.

The generic Médocs will make good bottles for the turn of the decade, as will the interestingly varied Haut-Médocs with more depth and length. Finally , Listrac and Moulis, the former firm, the latter supple, were more than reliable. The three rare whites I tasted from Margaux, Mouton Rothschild and Cos d’Estournel were remarkably good. All in all, 2014 on the Left Bank left a very good impression.

With much the same gravel as Margaux and a little more clay, the wines in St-Julien are correspondingly richer waith a firmness that brings balance and lenght. Quality was very good overall, with Ducru-Beaucaillou and Léoville-Las Cases standing out with first-growth quality. This is always the most homogenous commune, but the wines are very different from each other and I must confess, since I do not taste blind, my favourites always seem to do well.

This said, there have been improvements lower down the 1855 Classification, there are no fifth growths in St-Julien but the fourths all showed well, as did the few lesser wines produced in this 80% classified appellation.

Top 10 St-Julien 2014s:

See all Bordeaux 2014 En Primeur content 

圣于连

总是梅多克最和谐的村庄，列级酒庄占据了775公顷中的80%，在2010年的“波尔多红葡萄酒精粹”中圣于连的表现熠熠生辉。

由于低产量，2010年份比起2009年带有更多的天然浓度，完美的赤霞珠成熟度给予了每个酒庄生产完美表达风格和风土条件的葡萄酒的机会。质量和独立性联手生造就出独特和卓越，具有非常棒陈年潜力的葡萄酒。

5星*****

Ch Léoville-Las-Cases（二级酒庄）19.5分

果香惊人的浓郁，精细而纯净，对葡萄园的优异表达，无疑是一款此等级葡萄酒中非常优质的酒。适饮期2025–50

Ch Ducru-Beaucaillou（二级酒庄）19

极好的颜色，爆发出的果香凌驾于优秀的深度之上，比2009年份带有更多的光滑感，深度和新鲜度，难以想象还能有更优秀的Ducru。适饮期2020–50

Ch Léoville-Barton（二级酒庄）18.5分

精致的浓缩度，开始相当朴实，然后展现果香的纯粹与深度，经典的Leoville结实的质感和回味变得平实，是一款在贮藏后能得到回报的葡萄酒。适饮期2020-40

.

Ch Léoville-Poyferre（二级酒庄）18.5分

精致的黑色水果提纯，比 Barton 更饱满，单宁更丰富，非常好的成熟度，有利于长期陈年。适饮期2020–40

4星****

Ch Gruaud-Larose（二级酒庄）18分

庞大，典型的烟熏香料 Gruaud 香味，很多的新鲜果肉果香，近乎异国气息的各种香气，和谐而具有深度和回味，到达巅峰状态的中-长期贮藏潜力。适饮期2018–30

Ch Langoa-Barton（三级酒庄）18分

柔顺，多汁果香的非常好的提纯，美好而绵长的口感，回味悠长、和谐，一款优质的 Langoa。适饮期2018–35

Ch St-Pierre（四级酒庄）18分

浓郁的烟熏味和饱满的果香，具有多汁的口味与经典的结构，精美的新鲜度，强有力的单宁，有长期的陈年潜力。较收敛，但或许是该酒庄史上最好的葡萄酒。适饮期2020–35

Ch Beychevelle（四级酒庄）17.5分

美好而浓郁的黑加仑果香，闻起来有诱人的芬芳，精致的中口感和优秀的颗粒感单宁，一款非常好的 Beychevelle。适饮期2018–30

Ch Branaire-Ducru（四级酒庄）17.5分

很多的深度，已经表现出很好的芳香和复杂度，完美的浓郁度和新鲜度，平衡的回味，是此等级酒庄葡萄酒的另一款出色之作。适饮期2018–30

Ch Gloria 17.5分

浓郁的黑加仑果香，已然有芳香开放和轻柔的香气，新鲜的赤霞珠芳香以及好的回味，质量上是一款列级酒庄葡萄酒。适饮期2017–28

Ch Lagrange（三级酒庄）17分

赤霞珠果香的精美地表现出来，优雅，比同类少一点强劲感，但有非常好的口感和深度。适饮期2018–30

Ch Talbot（四级酒庄）17分

饱满，非常成熟的黑加仑赤霞珠果香，顺滑，甚至有多汁的口味，是这个年份相当开放的风格。适饮期2016–26

Clos de Marquis（副牌）17分

精致的黑加仑/紫罗兰香气，一款完美的圣于连，带有列级酒庄酒的精密与优雅。适饮期2017–30

La Croix de Beaucaillou（副牌）17分

非常好的赤霞珠主导果香的深度，一点香料香气，丝滑的回味，完美的平衡。适饮期2015–25

Ch Haut-Beychevelle Gloria 16.5分

很富有活力的赤霞珠果香，成熟，回味不错，很好的陈年潜力。适饮期2015–22

3星***

Ch du Glana（中级酒庄）16分

新鲜的果肉香气，柔软的果香，好的单宁，很好的成就。适饮期2015–23

Ch Lalande-Borie 16分

很多开放的、鲜明的果香，新鲜而平衡，一款非常吸引人的圣于连。适饮期2014–20

Ch Teynac 16分

富有花香和果香，很好的回味，优雅具有吸引力。适饮期2015–22

Le Petit Lion de Las-Cases （三牌）16分

优秀饱满的果香，显示出年轻葡萄树的魅力，归类于很有潜力的等级。适饮期2014–18

Les Fiefs de Lagrange （副牌）16分

吸引人的黑加仑香气散发着魅力，优雅及深度，一如既往的一款 Lagrange 的副牌酒。适饮期2013–18

Ch Lalande（中级酒庄）15.5分

优秀的黑加仑果香，表现出圣于连的风土条件，平衡。适饮期。 2014–20

Ch Les Ormes 15.5分

破碎的新鲜黑色水果香气，柔滑圆润，好的酸度。适饮期2015–22

Ch Moulin de la Rose 15.5分

良好的坚实果香以及良好的鲜明表现。适饮期2014–20

Connetable de Talbot （副牌） 15.5分

浓烟熏味和黑加仑果香，强劲并带有精致的结实回味，尚有一点不成熟。适饮期2014–18

3星 （15和14.5分） ***

Ch La Bridane 15分

Written by Steven Spurrier 撰写

Decanter Bordeaux Fine Wine Encounter Masterclasses - 1: The Elegance of St-Julien.

Speakers:

Patrick Maroteaux (Ch Branaire-Ducru)

Philippe Blanc (Ch Beychevelle)

Bruno Eynard (Ch Lagrange)

David Launay (Ch Gruaud-Larose)

This fine collection of houses clustered together in the south of the St-Julien district was the perfect illustration both of the area’s signature style – and its diversity.

An air of friendly competition permeated the discussion, with each of the châteaux keen to show how past investments in vineyard and winemaking facilities have paid off in the bottle.

From Branaire-Ducru’s gravity-fed winery, to Beychevelle’s yield reduction; from the wholesale replanting at Lagrange, to organic and homeopathic treatments at Gruaud-Larose – these houses have refused to stand still in their ceaseless quest for greater and greater quality.

At Branaire-Ducru, Patrick Maroteaux told of his pursuit of a fruitier, fresher, more elegant style, arguing the case for relatively under-estimated vintages such as 2007, of which he said: ‘The biggest problem was that it came after 2005 and 2006.’

It was an assessment supported by Philippe Blanc at Beychevelle. ‘When people don’t enjoy their time on the beach, they think the wines won’t be very good… The results far exceed what people expect.’

For Bruno Eynard at Chateau Lagrange, years of investment that have had an impact on more recent vintages – but so too has climate change. ‘It’s often very difficult to get good ripeness with Cabernet Sauvignon. Today, every year we can obtain this ripeness.’

And in response to an enquiry from the audience, David Launay had some good news for fans of Gruaud-Larose’s second wine, Sarget: ‘By doing more severe selection on the first wine, there is more second wine at the end… Sarget is now the leading wine of the estate.’

Best audience question: Do you feel as houses that you are driven sometimes by the points system and by Robert Parker, driven by what they think is a good wine?

Answer (from Philippe Blanc) : It’s like when you’re at school – when you have got good marks, you can only feel happy about that. But in 2004 we got no marks, and we feel that we have done good work. The most important people are our customers. We don’t work for journalists, we work for our customers.

Best panel comment: Bruno Eynard of Ch Lagrange on Petit Verdot: ‘It’s a kind of joker. Of course we need Cabernet Sauvignon and, with global warming, we use more and more Cabernet Sauvignon and less and less Merlot, because the alcohol level is so high. Petit Verdot gives us a lot of tannins, a lot of colour and also something which is more and more difficult to keep, and that’s acidity.’

Hot topic: Appropriately enough, the heatwave of 2003. The wines on show were forward and approachable, but showed little sign of flabbiness. Patrick Maroteaux of Ch Branaire-Ducru described himself as ‘a great fan’ of the vintage, but still thinks the wines will be long-lived.

Meanwhile, Philippe Blanc of Ch Beychevelle says: ‘For us, it was the discovery of southern or New World conditions. It taught us a lot and we learned to cope with the conditions of 2005 and 2009.’

Richard Woodard

Written by

Sense and Sensibility. He is renowned throughout the world as one of Bordeaux’s most high profile ambassadors. He is recognised for integrity, fair prices and archetypal St-Juliens. Anthony Barton, Decanter’s 2007 Man of the Year, tells Stephen Brook why he refuses to overcharge for his wines.

Sense and Sensibility. He is renowned throughout the world as one of Bordeaux’s most high profile ambassadors. He is recognised for integrity, fair prices and archetypal St-Juliens. Anthony Barton, Decanter’s 2007 Man of the Year, tells Stephen Brook why he refuses to overcharge for his wines.

Anthony Barton has lived in Bordeaux for 55 years, but he is no Frenchman. Indeed, he is an Irish country gentleman transplanted to St-Julien in the Médoc, where for over 20 years he has owned and run Châteaux Léoville-Barton and its neighbour Langoa-Barton. Perhaps to his own surprise, he won the respect of the international wine trade when he refused, unlike almost everyone else in Bordeaux, to increase his opening prices in 1997. This was a mediocre vintage – a lightweight year that delivered wines to drink fairly young – but there was keen demand for the wines, or so négociants claimed. Prices soared. Barton felt uncomfortable raising the prices for wines he knew were modest. And customers who bought other, more extravagantly priced wines often found their value plummeted.

Anthony Barton has never had time for the greed that characterises so much of the Bordeaux scene, so his wines have always offered exceptional value. The great 2000 Léoville-Barton trickled onto the British en primeur market at around £350 per case, but before long it was trading at three times that price. Of course it was the négociants and importers rather than the Bartons who were making all that profit. It is too tempting to ask Barton whether his wines are now underpriced, with the wine trade’s middlemen profiting at his expense.

‘I don’t consider our wines underpriced. I don’t want to play this game of always competing with my neighbours. That’s all about vanity and doesn’t help the image of Bordeaux. If Léoville-Barton seems cheaper than many other top second growths, it doesn’t bother me. We’re making a very good living as it is. How many new cars can anyone buy after each vintage?

‘The last thing I want to do is kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. I don’t find it galling that négociants sometimes make a good profit from our wines. After all, there are many top Bordeaux wines out there from which they make no money – usually because allocations are being cut, and the merchants need to service their regular clients and avoid putting too high a margin on what is already an expensive case of wine. These days some wines are so severely allocated that many importers can only obtain a saleable quantity by spending days chasing up cases here and there on the Bordeaux marketplace. For them it’s become a pain in the neck acquiring stocks of certain wines their clients are after. In contrast, they can buy our wines relatively easily at a fair price and can make a profit from them. And the consumer does not have to pay through the nose. So everybody’s happy. One of the many problems in Bordeaux is that too many people associate price with prestige, so some proprietors push for the highest possible release price. That’s not a game I want to play.’

He looks with amazement at recent transactions in the Médoc, such as the purchase of Montrose by the super-rich Bouygues family. He is not opposed to such investments in the region – it has been a standard practice since the 17th century – but knows that prices are now so high that it is impossible to see how these estates can ever be run on a profitable basis. He can only assume that the new owners either don’t care, or are gambling on eventually obtaining what would now seem an unrealistic price for the wine.

Family fortunes

Barton has a very long perspective on the Bordeaux wine scene, as he has been part of it for almost 60 years, following in the footsteps of numerous ancestors. Thomas Barton landed here in 1722, and the family prospered as négociants. Hugh Barton bought the two estates Anthony now runs: Langoa in 1821 and Léoville in 1826. In 1835 Hugh built a spacious pile called Straffan House at his estate in County Kildare. Twenty years later Léoville was classified as a second growth, Langoa as a third.

Anthony grew up at Straffan, but the property was sold after World War II and is now a hotel and golf course. He first came to Bordeaux in 1948 to work the harvest under the eye of his uncle Ronald Barton. Then, after two years at Cambridge studying modern languages, the young scion was dispatched to Bordeaux.

‘I didn’t work at the estates. I asked Uncle Ronald if I could manage the vineyards, but he wouldn’t hear of it. The wine estates weren’t making money – no Bordeaux properties were profitable in the 1950s and 1960s – and I had to work for our négociant firm, Barton & Guestier. It was the only way I was going to get a salary. What’s more, nobody lived at the château, which was run down, and only used at weekends and during the harvest. Whenever I turned up, I was told not to touch the curtains, as Ronald was convinced one good tug would bring them crashing down.’

Today all that has changed, and the elegant 18th-century château, about 1km north of Beychevelle, is one of the few great houses of the Médoc permanently inhabited by its owners. Here Barton and his Danish wife, Eva, entertain guests for lunch in the beautifully furnished rooms, while the estate management is undertaken from the side wings, where his beloved dogs roam through the offices. Most visitors assume the mansion is Léoville-Barton, but not so. Léoville-Barton, being just one third of the original Léoville property, had no house of its own, unlike Langoa-Barton, to which the actual château belongs.

https://www.decanter.com/premium/chateau-beychevelle-wines-ratings-397852/

In the late 1950s Seagram’s bought a 50% share in Barton & Guestier, where Barton had become export director. Gradually it increased its holding and in 1967 he left to set up his own négociant business, Vins Fins Anthony Barton, which is today run by his daughter, Liliane.

‘I wasn’t allowed to handle the two Bartons, which were sold through Barton & Guestier. So I had to make money by selling, for example, off-dry white to the Finnish monopoly. It was fairly nasty stuff, but they couldn’t get enough of it. Eventually the agreement with Barton & Guestier came to an end, and after that I could sell our wines as well, which helped considerably.

‘Uncle Ronald was reluctant to hand over the properties to me, and resisted any attempts to make improvements. Our old destemmer-crusher was a ghastly machine, which really churned up the grapes. When I suggested buying a modern replacement, he wouldn’t hear of it. He’d say that if it had been good enough for great vintages such as 1945 and 1947, it was good enough still. But he was also terrified of going into debt, so he wouldn’t borrow money to finance much-needed investments. Uncle Ronald produced some of our greatest post-war vintages. Unlike many neighbours, he had the foresight not to replant the neglected vineyards after the war, so we had a lot of old vines. As for the destemmer-crusher, I simply announced one day that it had broken down irretrievably, and went out and bought a new one.’

Taking over

In 1984 Ronald Barton, aged 82, was at last ready to retire. Anthony made some badly needed investments – he installed temperature control, bought more new barrels – but there were no radical changes. At the Barton properties, as elsewhere in the Médoc, there is no ‘winemaker’: there is a cellarmaster, and the vastly experienced Jacques Boissenot acts as a consultant. Who, I wonder, makes the crucial decisions, such as when to harvest, how long to macerate, and how to compose the final blends?

‘It’s a joint decision,’ Barton explains. ‘We already know the style of wine we want to make, so we adapt the vinification and maceration to the quality of the fruit. And of course Boissenot comes into his own at the blending stage, though he’s a frequent visitor during and just after the harvest. He understands that we’re not trying to make a huge wine here – it’s not our style.’

The consistency of the wines suggests this is a set-up that works, and it stems from a deep familiarity with the vineyards. Nor is Barton entranced by hi-tech aids such as concentrators, though he admits to having conducted trials with such innovations. So the Barton wines remain traditional, in that the vineyard and cellar teams know what they are doing and what they are aiming for, and have no need to tweak a winning formula.

Nor is Anthony Barton a great believer in green-harvesting. ‘But that doesn’t mean we go for high yields. If you compare our average yields with those of other St Julien properties, you’ll find they’re much the same: about 50hl/ha. One American importer scoffed when he heard that, and told me the wine would be much better at half that yield. Since that would also reduce my production by 50%, I asked if he would mind if I doubled my price to make up for it. Of course he’d mind, he said. But there’s no way I would follow his advice anyway. Claret has never been a super-concentrated wine, except in years such as 1947, or 2003 or 2005, when nature gave us exceptionally low yields.’

The face of Bordeaux

The Bartons, even if they wanted to buy property in Bordeaux, could not afford to do so. ‘I’d like to have tried something in South Africa, but it’s only in recent years that our financial position would have made that possible, and now it’s rather too late.’

Anthony Barton is now 76, and though his face has the lined quality of the habitual outdoorsman, he seems younger than his years. He looks back on Uncle Ronald’s heyday in the 1940s as a great period for the two properties, and he has, over the past two decades, returned the Barton wines to that level of quality. Barton is a guardian of all that’s best in Bordeaux, putting himself at the service of his wines rather than the other way round. I have sometimes encountered Anthony and Eva Barton at airports, weary after a long flight back from Singapore or the United States, where their activity has been as much ambassadorial as promotional. Ever accessible, ever courteous, he always conveys the notion of Bordeaux as a wine of integrity and distinction.

He remains true to his ideal of fine claret as a wine that is balanced, digestible, classic, a wine without excess. It’s a style admired and loved by everyone who wants a wine to give those primary pleasures of fruit, succulence, and sustaining tannins. It would be an exaggeration to see Barton as a consumer’s champion, but he always seems conscious of the final destination of any good wine: an appreciative dinner table. Nor does he want his wines, for all their distinction, to be the preserve of the rich alone. They remain affordable and accessible. Behind his relaxed and amused manner is a dogged integrity, and a quiet determination that fine Bordeaux must remain true to itself.

https://www.decanter.com/learn/vintage-guides/bordeaux-vintage-guide/

Barton At A Glance

Born: 1930, Ireland

Education: Stowe and Cambridge

Married: wife Eva and two children

Career in wine: Barton & Guestier, Bordeaux, 1951–67; founded Vins Fins Anthony Barton, 1967; inherited Léoville-Barton and Langoa-Barton, 1984

Properties: Château Langoa-Barton, 17ha (hectares). Second wine: Lady Langoa.

Château Léoville-Barton, 54ha. Second wine: La Réserve Léoville-Barton

Tributes To Anthony Barton

Jean-Michel Cazes, Château Lynch-Bages: ’It is often said that the true “vigneron” puts his very personality into the wines he makes… This is particularly true of Anthony Barton. Both the man and his wines possess elegance, authenticity, breed, generosity. To this he adds a touch of common sense and a dose of humour. He is loyal to his friends and respectful of his customers. Our Médoc owes much to Anthony and all the Bartons in our history.’

Johnny Goedhuis, MD, Goedhuis & Co: ‘Anthony – wit, raconteur, winemaker, generous host and great friend – has been part of my life since 1975. My 30 years in the trade would have been immeasurably poorer if I hadn’t met him.

‘Anthony has not only made great wines over the last 25 years but has priced them at a level that one can afford to drink. He remains a voice of sanity in the increasingly expensive world of the Médoc.’

Jancis Robinson MW, wine author: ‘I can´t think of a wine producer in France who is better company. Affable, decorative, informative, extremely helpful and –

most important – always amusing. Oh, and his wines are pretty good too.’

Christopher Berry Green, chairman Berry Bros & Rudd: ‘My association and friendship with Anthony, Eva and Liliane began 40 years ago in London (although I had stayed at Château Langoa with Uncle Ronald some years before), and I have lost track of the very many occasions when members and guests of our own company have enjoyed the good friendship and generous hospitality of the Barton family. Anthony is admired and respected the world over for his seemingly tireless ability to foster enjoyment and understanding of fine claret, and there is nobody in the Bordeaux trade whose knowledge and integrity I hold in greater respect. I heartily applaud Anthony’s selection as Decanter Man of the Year 2007.’

Jean Hugel, Hugel & Fils: ‘Anthony Barton is a true gentleman of the wine world, who is as universally respected and admired as his wines, and I am privileged to count him among my close friends. Our friendship dates back to the 1960s, when I was understudying my father and Anthony was understudying his uncle Ronald, at our annual joint tastings in London, Southport and Edinburgh. Ever since then, Château Léoville-Barton has had pride of place on my table, and I am honoured to see our yellow label on Anthony’s table in St-Julien… On behalf of all the Hugel family, I send my warmest congratulations to Anthony.’

Adam Brett Smith, Corney & Barrow: ‘Anthony’s Anglo-Irish humour, subtle and simple, often leaves his friends uncertain as to whether they are the hunter or the prey. He has a lightness of touch and a self-deprecating quality that masks a profound humanity and business acumen.

‘What he, Eva and Liliane have achieved at Langoa- and Léoville-Barton has passed into legend. I am simply proud to know him as both a mentor and friend.’

Decanter Hall Of Fame: The Former Men And Women Of The Year

2006Marcel GuigalRhône

2005Ernst LoosenMosel

2004Brian CroserAdelaide Hills

2003Jean-Michel CazesBordeaux

2002Miguel TorresPenedès

2001Jean-Claude Rouzaud

Champagne

2000Paul DraperCalifornia

1999Jancis Robinson MWLondon

1998Angelo GajaPiedmont

1997Len Evans, OBE AOAustralia

1996Georg RiedelAustria

1995Hugh JohnsonLondon

1994May-Eliane de Lencquesaing

Bordeaux

1993Michael BroadbentLondon

1992André TchelistcheffCalifornia

1991José Ignacio DomecqJerez

1990Prof Emile PeynaudBordeaux

1989Robert MondaviCalifornia

1988Max SchubertAustralia

1987Alexis LichineBordeaux

1986Marchese Piero Antinori

Florence

1985Laura and Corinne Mentzelopoulos

Bordeaux

1984Serge HocharLebanon

The Great Langoa-Bartons Of The Last 20 Years

Most of these wines were tasted in December 2006.

2003 HHH Opaque in colour, discreetly oaky on the nose. Dense, extracted and chewy, giving little pleasure now and too atypical to assess its potential. More length than many 2003s and a grippy finish. 2012–16.

2002 HHHH Pure blackcurranty fruit on the nose and palate, and lovely toasty oak. A stylish wine from an underrated vintage, with concentration and exceptional length. 2014–25.

2001 HHHH More perfumed and open than 2000. Medium-bodied yet has fine acidity and grip, combining delicacy with structure and length. A sleeper that will reward patience. 2012–25.

2000 HHHHH Black-cherry fruit on the nose, which is closing up. Very concentrated, rich and succulent, formidable now but has splendid fruit. Seems slightly low in acidity, but this is built to last. 2015–25.

1998 HHHH Very deep colour, and a bold black-fruits nose with integrated oak. A classic style, with firm tannins but no greenness. Ample fruit but too dense to give much pleasure now. 2012–22.

1996 HHHHH Fine blackcurranty fruit on the nose, with lead pencil tones. Sweet and graceful on the palate, structured but not overtly robust, with a long, peppery, persistent finish. 2010–25.

1995 HHHH Dense and closed on the nose, though scented with sweet oak. Tannic and muscular, with unusual grip for Langoa, and true to the vintage. Good length promises a long future. 2010–25.

1989 HHHHH Muted black cherry aromas, with a hint of liquorice. Fine concentration and ample succulence, not weightily structured, yet remarkably fresh and lively, with exceptional length. Up to 2020.

1988 HHH The nose has elegance and charm, often in short supply in this vintage. It’s a concentrated wine but somewhat lean and lacking in succulence. But balanced and stylish.

Up to 2012.

1986 HHHH Unevolved colour, and discreet cedary aromas. Typically 1986 in its assertiveness and spice, but it’s not tough and has fine acidity and length. Up to 2015.

And Leoville-Barton Highlights

2004 HHHH Stylish blackcurrant aromas typical of this property at its best. Rich, supple, concentrated, with lovely fruit, spiciness and vigour. Fine balance and length. Classic. 2016–30.

2003 HHH Atypically plummy nose. Rich but baked and tough, and lacks St-Julien typicity. Modest acidity raises question marks over its ageability. 2010–16.

2001 HHHH Spicy blackcurrant aromas. Rounded and lush with masses of fruit, balanced by firm tannins. A bit of a bruiser now, and clearly needs time. 2018–28.

2000 HHHHH Black cherries and blackcurrant. Very rich and concentrated, magnificent in its power and opulence, complex and deeply structured. Very long and hard to fault. 2018–30.

1998 HHHH Closed nose. Rich and svelte, with firm but ripe tannins, chewy and perhaps lacks some overt fruitiness. Solid, robust, but little flair. 2015–25.

1996 HHHHH Level-pegging with 1995. Aromatically more open, with plenty of blackcurrant and toasty oak. Fresh, spicy, vigorous, long and precise. More stylish than 1995 but less powerful. 2012–25.

1995 HHHHH Inexpressive but lively nose, with hints of mint and currants. Bright, fresh and lively, concentrated and firmly tannic and thus still very youthful. But long and vigorous. 2015–30.

1990 HHHHH Sweet, leafy, cedary nose – perfect St-Julien. Lush, juicy, with masses of upfront fruit, but stylish, concentrated and fresh. Will slug it out with the 1989 over the next two decades. 2012–25.

1989 HHHHH Sweet and sumptuous on the nose. Ripe, intense, with more grip than Langoa. Tight and needs time, but should outgun Langoa in the long term – though more accessible today. 2010–25.

1986 HHHHH The antithesis of 1985: full-bodied, tannic and assertive, virile and highly concentrated. A classic style with a great future, but doesn’t have the poise and charm of 1985. 2015–25.

1985 HHHHH Delicate blackcurrant aromas, showing enormous charm. Medium-bodied but concentrated and still fresh, with impeccable balance and a sprightly finish. Very long. Up to 2018.

1982 HHHH Lush blackberry and blackcurrant fruit on the nose. Voluptuous palate, but also spicy and lively with no signs of overripeness. Charging confidently into the future. Up to 2018.

Bordeaux châteaux are at each other’s throats over the classification of their vines, with producers in Margaux and St-Julien refusing to give ground. By Margaret Rand

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Margaux has something of an anniversary this year, though there may not be many celebrations. It was 20 years ago that the new owner of Château d’Arsac, Philippe Raoux, set the cat among the pigeons by deciding that he wanted his Haut-Médoc château to be reclassified as Margaux. Some years later, proprietors in Cussac decided that what was good enough for d’Arsac was good enough for them, and they started asking for une partie of Cussac to be included in the St-Julien appellation. In St-Julien the pigeons are standing their ground and refusing to budge; in Margaux they’re prepared to reach an accommodation – but only if it’s the right one.

In Margaux the d’Arsac case eventually went to the Conseil d’Etat, the highest court in France, which ruled in its favour: 40 of d’Arsac’s 112 hectares are now within the Margaux appellation, which, according to its previous owner, they always should have been. In 1986, the then owner, Robert de Rijcke, pointed out that d’Arsac was the only growth in Arsac not to have the Margaux appellation. When the appellation was created, he added, ‘the proprietor at that time did not have a single vine, and did not consider it opportune to have his wine-growing lands included within the limits of the new appellation’.

Fair enough, you might think; why should today’s owner suffer because of the lack of foresight of a previous one? But the ramifications have been enormous. Once d’Arsac got its promotion (a drawn out process, with Raoux and the governing INAO not seeing eye to eye on the quality of the soil), a number of other owners on the edges of Margaux decided they too would like an upgrade.

So, in 1996, the Margaux syndicat asked the INAO to reopen all the boundaries and redefine them. A commission d’inquête, composed of the heads of ACs in other regions, was appointed to work with a committee of experts from Bordeaux University. However, it has taken so long that the committee is now on its third cast. Last June, the commission finally made its proposals. And did the syndicat agree with them? No, it did not.

The current head of the syndicat is Gonzague Lurton. ‘We have asked for a delimitation for the 21st century, not for the 20th,’ he says. ‘We have soil analyses now for most parcels of vines, and if we wait for these to be completed, we could resolve the issue in two years’ time. But if we stop now, with these boundaries, there will be problems with the courts for years.’ The same sort of problems, indeed, which have bedevilled the reclassification of the crus bourgeois. ‘The problem is not the number of hectares they proposed adding,’ says Lurton, ‘but the kind of hectares.’

The overall size of the Margaux appellation is unlikely to change much because some land will be removed – land that everybody seems to agree is not worthy of the AC. Angludet, for example, is set to lose some sandy soil that isn’t planted with vines because it is clearly not good enough; nobody objects to that sort of thing. However, classed growths Prieuré Lichine and cru bourgeois Siran are among châteaux resisting a move to have some of their vines declassified to Haut Medoc status.

And then there’s the thorny issue of granting AC status to newcomers. ‘We can have new soil in Margaux if it corresponds to the very best in the appellation,’ says Lurton. ‘But they compared some soils to the least soils in Margaux. Some they proposed adding are not good at all, and they didn’t use the same criteria everywhere.’

Some of the proposed additions are currently Haut-Médoc, some are Bordeaux Rouge and some, in the west of the appellation, are currently unclassified, but have good gravel. Lurton points out that when Margaux was delimited in 1954, Bordeaux was going through one of its worst crises. ‘When the Tari family bought Giscours there were only a few hectares of vines there,’ he says by way of illustration, ‘and everywhere only the historical soils were included in the appellation.’ A few very good soils were not included, particularly in the west of the appellation. ‘But even in the east there are some complications.’

So now it’s expert against expert, specialist against specialist. ‘The difficulty,’ says Lurton, ‘is that there is no objective way to prove that one parcel has a terroir superior to its neighbours. The more you work at it, the less you understand.’

The same may be true one day of the St-Julien dispute. It grew out of an earlier anomaly: because the 1855 classification happened before the delimitation of the appellation, some classified châteaux – Beychevelle, Ducru-Beaucaillou, Branaire – which owned vineyards in Cussac had them classified with the rest of the estate. When the appellation came along they were allowed to call wine from their Cussac vines St-Julien even though it was from outside the appellation.

Perhaps it’s surprising that it took so long for the other Cussac growers to say, ‘If they can be St-Julien, I want to be, too’. All 21 of them have joined together to suggest to the INAO that there could be other terroirs in Cussac capable of being transformed, though nobody knows how many hectares might be involved. Conflicts abound – the regional director of INAO is owner of Château Lanessan, one of the Cussac properties; he declined even to be quoted in this piece.

About 11 years ago a dossier was submitted to the INAO, since when nothing much has happened. ‘We have meetings with INAO now and again,’ says Anthony Barton of Châteaux Léoville- and Langoa-Barton, who opposes the motion. ‘The other week there was one at Branaire. Patrick Maroteau [owner of Branaire and president of the syndicat of St-Julien] had written a report, and the INAO asked if we could summarise the matter in a few words. They hadn’t read his report because they hadn’t had time.’

Maroteau points out that the parts of Cussac that can be included in St-Julien have been precisely defined, and that if they were sold they would revert to being Haut-Médoc. ‘The Cussac commune says that in the 19th century its wines were sold as St-Julien, and this is a serious argument. But there’s also the question of what consumers expect of the typicity of St-Julien. All the St-Julien owners oppose an extension of the appellation, even those with vineyards in Cussac.’

https://www.decanter.com/premium/top-st-julien-2016-wines-367031/

Barton claims that if you give the St-Julien appellation to Cussac, the commune of St Laurent will want it too, ‘and it has more claim to be St-Julien than Cussac does, because it has three classed growths (La Tour-Carnet, Camensac and Belgrave). Cussac and St-Laurent together would double the size of St-Julien.’

So is it just a matter of protectionism? It could easily appear so, particularly if, as Lurton says, there is no objective test of terroir. Perhaps they should do what Margaux is doing, and start again? A lot hangs on how rigorous the new Margaux delimitation is – when it happens. The trouble is, a system built on terroir when there is no objective test of terroir can begin to look like a house of cards. If you’re going to tamper with it, you have to do so very, very carefully.

Perceived as the archetypal red Bordeaux, it is very hard to fault Saint-Julien. James LaWther MW explains its enviable reputation.

I suspect there may be a touch of envy in the Médoc when it comes to Saint-Julien. It’s understandable. An appellation where 80% of the vineyard area is owned by 11 high-profile cru classé châteaux, including five second growths, is already irksome. But the fact that in recent years these estates have maintained an unrivalled level of consistency is even more vexing. So what is Saint-Julien’s recipe for success?

First, let’s start with the wine itself. The Oxford Companion to Wine states that Saint-Julien is for those who seek ‘subtlety, balance and tradition in their red Bordeaux’, while in the Bordeaux Atlas Michael Broadbent MW describes it as ‘the archetypal Englishman’s claret’. Both expound the idea that, whereas some may object to the power and concentration of Pauillac or the austerity of Saint-Estèphe, and others feel uncomfortable with the variations in Margaux, Saint-Julien is what everyone sees as the quintessential red Bordeaux – essentially a medium-bodied wine that is dry but with mellow fruit, restrained, digestible and long-lived.

Marcel Ducasse, general manager of third-growth Château Lagrange, says that ‘balance’ is the word best used to describe the character of Saint-Julien. ‘The wines should be fruity and tannic but not excessively so, not too extracted, and with more length than volume,’ he explains.

In terms of the influencing factors that help determine the style and quality of Saint-Julien, terroir obviously plays a part. A compact appellation of some 910ha (hectares), the region comprises two well-exposed and drained gravelly plateaux that are bounded to the north by Pauillac and the south and west by appellation Haut-Médoc. A ridge of deep gravel overlooks the Gironde estuary to the east and it’s here that a good percentage of the second growth vineyards – Léoville Barton, Las Cases and Poyferré – are to be found. The walled grand clos of Château Léoville Las Cases, in particular, is in close proximity to the estuary and borders Château Latour in Pauillac, a possible reason for the slightly steelier character found in its wine.

Further south on the Beychevelle plateau, Château Ducru-Beaucaillou also dominates the estuary but, because the limestone bedrock is higher, the gravel is thinner, which could contribute to the added finesse of the Saint-Julien wines. All these vineyards benefit from the free-draining, deep-rooting effect of the gravel and the warming influence of the estuary. The only ‘inland’ second growth, Château Gruaud-Larose, overlooks the Jalle du Nord stream to the south and possesses a single unit of well-exposed vineyards located on deep gravel with a higher percentage of clay. The grapes ripen well and the wines appear richer in style.

The 110ha of fourth-growth Château Talbot are also grouped together, but in the centre of the appellation, at an apex of 23m, which is high for the Médoc. A core area of 60ha has deep gravel soils, but as the vineyards run west so the gravel becomes thinner, the soil sandier and the wines lively but less intense. There can also be a difference of two to three days in ripening. Further west Château Lagrange is another huge domaine of 113ha, with a mixed bag of soils. A gravel hillock to the east of the château is considered the highest quality zone.

The other classed growths are parcelled in composition. Château Beychevelle has a third of its vineyard on the Beychevelle plateau but also has parcels elsewhere, including an authorised plot in the Haut-Médoc commune of Cussac, as has Ducru-Beaucaillou. Châteaux Branaire and Langoa-Barton also have vines on the Beychevelle plateau, but Branaire’s land is to the far west, near Saint Laurent. Château Saint-Pierre is perhaps the most scattered and includes a plot of authorised land in Pauillac.

The overall picture is one of a good ripening zone but with natural variations according to vineyard location. Another variable is the grape variety. The gravel soils lean towards a dominance of Cabernet Sauvignon, but less so than in Pauillac. A typical vineyard ratio would be 65% Cabernet Sauvignon, 25% Merlot, with the remaining 10% planted to Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. However, this varies according to château and vintage. Château Talbot has a blend of 70% Cabernet Sauvignon and 30% Merlot in the 2000 vintage, compared with, respectively, 55% and 40% with a complement of Petit Verdot and Cabernet Franc in the 2001.

https://www.decanter.com/premium/pauillac-2017-wines-ratings-in-bottle-431736/

Good estate management and, of course, investment play an important role in Saint-Julien, and in this respect the small group of producers in the appellation are a fairly cohesive bunch. Friendly rivalry exists and there is a clear-cut hierarchy (witness the release price of h76 (£48) at the top end for Léoville Las Cases compared with h17 (£11) at the bottom for Branaire in 2000), but basically they pull together. The most tangible evidence of this is the h3.8 million (£2.4 million) joint investment in a water purification plant which was built to serve the whole appellation and is, at present, the only one of its kind in Bordeaux. Individually, the impetus of steady and devoted family ownership has benefited a number of the top estates. The Bartons have owned Châteaux Léoville and Langoa-Barton since the 1820s, with Anthony Barton carrying the flame from 1985. The style of management has always been gentlemanly and discreet, but greater rigour and increased investment in cellars and vineyards over the last 20 years has definitely reaped rewards. In the vineyards, unsung hero Michel Raoult, technical director for the last 18 years, has achieved a considerable amount; replanting, tending the soils with organic material and refusing to do any vendange vert or green harvesting.

The same scenario can be found at Châteaux Léoville Las Cases and Ducru-Beaucaillou where, over the years, the Delons and Bories, aided and abetted by a devoted workforce, have maintained exemplary standards. In the mid-1900s, the Cordier family provided stability at Château Gruaud-Larose, but the property has since changed hands three times. Nevertheless, the wines have been of a regular quality and continuity has been maintained through general manager Georges Pauli, who has been around since 1971, and a massive investment programme in the 1990s by owners Alcatel-Alstom. All present owner Jean Merlaut has had to do is not rock the boat.

Château Léoville Poyferré has been the least consistent of the second growths but has had a fairly comprehensive shake-up since Didier Cuvelier took over the management in 1979. Half the 80ha estate has been replanted, the cellars have been renovated and rebuilt and, with the assistance of consultant oenologist Michel Rolland, selection has become more severe. Improvements there have been, not least in the big Cabernet years such as 2000, 1996 and 1986, but there is still the feeling that the very best is yet to come. Specifically, a prime parcel of 8ha opposite Léoville Las Cases was only replanted in 1995 (the old rootstock caused a rusticity in the tannins) and has yet to be used in the grand vin. The other classed growths have also benefited from fairly extensive investment programmes and a drive for quality and consistency. Thierry Rustmann estimates they invest h1.2 million (£0.75 million) a year to maintain standards at family property Château Talbot. This has included a new bottling line, storage facilities and reception centre for the harvest, as well as drainage and an increasing amount of work in the vineyards. ‘The more we strive for quality the more we return to manual work in the vineyards,’ he says. At Château Beychevelle equipment has been renewed, cellars renovated, vineyards overhauled and, as everywhere, selection made more stringent. ‘Since 1995 we have lost the equivalent of 8,000 cases of Château Beychevelle a year through wines being downgraded to the second label,’ explains manager Philippe Blanc.

The most spectacular results of astute management and investment can be seen at Châteaux Lagrange and Branaire, the two crus classés previously considered to be dragging their heels. Château Branaire has been turned around since the Maroteaux family purchased it in 1988, while Château Lagrange has experienced nothing less than a revolution. Acquired by Japanese drinks company Suntory in 1983 for h8.2 million (£5 million), a further h30.5 million (£19 million) was then injected. This enabled the purchase of new buildings and equipment and an increase in the area under vine from 56ha to the present 113ha. As the vineyard is still relatively young, only 35% of production is selected for the grand vin. ‘Lagrange will be truly great when I’m no longer here,’ says Marcel Ducasse, estate manager for the last 20 years. The steady rise in prices and dwindling volume of grands vins has created a growing market for the second labels. Château Léoville Las Cases was the first to ‘build a brand’ with the Clos du Marquis, now selling at the price of a fifth growth, and the other estates are also looking to improve and consolidate in this sector. This often means more selection and attention to quality through the creation of a third label or selling part of the wine off in bulk, as well as a higher percentage of new oak for barrel ageing. There is also a certain affirmation of style. Les Fiefs de Lagrange, for instance, always has a higher percentage of Cabernet Sauvignon than Lagrange, due to the age of the vines.

As for the crus bourgeois and smaller Saint-Julien estates, they are few in number and tend to get swept along on the tide. Châteaux Glana and Gloria are the largest, with La Bridane, Hortevie, Lalande Borie, Moulin de la Rose and Teynac the pick of a limited bunch. Investment is evidently less expansive than at the grands crus, but quality is still a driving factor. Since the early 1990s, Château Teynac has grown to 12ha and increased the volume of work in the vineyards. There has been new investment in tractors, barrels, sorting tables and plastic containers for hand- harvesting and selection has improved with the introduction of a second label. It could almost be a grand cru.

Vintages may vary but it’s difficult to find a flaw in Saint-Julien. The terroir and compact nature of the appellation provide a solid framework to which management and investment have boosted quality and consistency. What’s even more encouraging is that there is still room for improvement. Léoville Poyferré has that well-sited parcel waiting to come online for the grand vin, and Léoville Barton has something similar. Château Lagrange’s vineyards can only improve with age and there’s potential for Château Beychevelle to increase the percentage of Cabernet Sauvignon on the superb plateau de Bechevelle. It’s enough to turn the darkest Pauillac green with envy.