The 2019 Château Ducru-Beaucaillou, composed of 80% Cabernet Sauvignon and 20% Merlot, is a powerful and muscular wine, boasting aromas of cassis, raspberries, cherries, violets, and iris, alongside hints of creamy new oak. The palate is full-bodied, velvety, and concentrated, with ripe, powdery tannins supporting a deep core of fruit. While rich and lively, it requires patience for its full potential to unfold. This wine showcases a blend of structure and elegance, and it will continue to evolve, with an anticipated maturity well into the 2040s.

Jamessuckling.com | JS 98
Published: Feb 10, 2022

This is so seductive on the nose, with perfumes of violets, blackcurrants, raspberries, and orange peel. Subtle. Ethereal. Full-bodied with such fine tannins and delicacy, with great length and beauty. Sophisticated and refined. Really amazing purity and depth. Great length, too. 80% cabernet sauvignon and 20% merlot. Leave this for at least five or six years. 

The Wine Advocate | RP 96+
Published: Apr 7, 2022
Drink: 2029-2065

Powerful and muscular, the 2019 Ducru-Beaucaillou offers up aromas of cassis, raspberries and cherries mingled with notions of violets and iris, framed by a generous application of creamy new oak. Full-bodied, velvety and concentrated, it'srich but lively, with a deep core of fruit and an ample endowment of ripe, powdery tannins. Fuller maturity and a more rigorous selection over the last two decades have brought what proprietor Bruno Borie characterizes as additional "punch" to this wine, in the form of unprecedented levels of anthocyanins and tannins, but all that substance and structure will require some patience before we'll see if Ducru is still Saint-Julien's most elegant wine. 

Decanter | D 96
Published: Jan 5, 2022
Drink: 2025-2045

Rich, ripe, heady nose filled with milk chocolate, blackcurrant and black cherry with floral touches. This is a beguiling wine, starting off smooth and velvety with a bright cherry freshness that is fun and playful before settling and deepening into a black fruit profile, seductively drawing you in and presenting layer upon layer of acidity, flavour and tannins that, despite being abundant and mouth filling are juicy, soft and fine. Precision winemaking on show here, and across the entire range of wines this year. This is complex and defined with an aerial finish that's filled with crushed stone and freshly picked mint. A glass of wine you just want to sit with and think about. One to buy and hold on to.
Closure: Natural Cork
Alcohol: 14.20%
Body: Full
Oak: Oaked
Grapes: 80% Cabernet Sauvignon 20% Merlot

Jancisrobinson.com | JR 17.5
Published: May 2, 2023
Drink: 2029-2042

'Mild winter/spring conditions prompted early budburst. Cooler temperatures in April and May delayed flowering, though a rise in temperatures in mid June resulted in a successful fruit set. Summer was hot, with temperatures higher than average from 23 June 23 through to October giving small, concentrated berries. Late July brought welcomed rains, rejuvenated the vines. August and September saw light rains and cooler night temperatures, which helped to retain acidity and prolong the ripening phase.' Harvest: 20 September – 10 October. 80% Cabernet, 20% Merlot. 18 months in new French oak.
Black core. So much more fragrant than the 2018. More pure fruit and dark elegance. The tannins are not as velvety but they are superfine even if they are holding everything to ransom at the moment. Lovely freshness.

Chateau-ducru-beaucaillou.com

For 300 years, six families have nurtured an indelible bond with Château Ducru-Beaucaillou. They are forever captives of this prestigious estate, be they named Desjean, Bergeron, Ducru, Johnston, Desbarat, or Borie. Its families were never short of praise for it. Over the decades, this devotion has managed to overcome all that is accidental or fleeting, as if passion perfected Nature's opus. 

Château Ducru-Beaucaillou owes its name to its "beautiful pebbles" ("beaux Cailloux", in French) that geologists refer to less romantically as Gunzian gravel. These quartz pebbles were deposited by the ancient Garonne at the beginning of the early Quaternary period, some two million years ago. It suffices to take a walk through the vineyards to make rich lithological finds. Lydian jasper from the Pyrenees, flint, quartz, agatoids... These Gunzian gravels make for soils that are poor in plant nutrients. But it is their very agrological paucity that guarantees the qualitative excellence of the wines. A choice of nature. 

The result is in the glass. The allure is immediate. A soft, fruity attack on the palate, a voluptuousness underscored by perfectly integrated, silky tannins that culminate in an exceptionally lengthy finish. The aromas dance, flatter the nose, seduce the soul and penetrate the memory. A muse that arrives on tiptoe and leave a lasting, infinite souvenir.