1985 Ducru-Beaucaillou, St-Julien

This bottle of 1985 Château Ducru-Beaucaillou was one of its later releases of recorked vintages and it was magnificent. Readers may recall that there were TCA issues with several mid-‘80s vintages at Ducru and the team at the estate decided to recork everything in the cellars here in 2011. The 1985 is a beautiful vintage from this superb property, offering up a deep and classic nose of cassis, a touch of pomegranate, cigar smoke, gravelly soil tones, tobacco leaf and a deft framing of toasty new oak. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied and already nicely suave on the attack, with a fine core of fruit, excellent soil undertow and grip, refined, moderate tannins and a long, complex and impeccably balanced finish. This is starting to drink nicely, but my gut instinct is that there is still an additional layer of complexity waiting to emerge if the wine is given a bit longer in the cellar.