2016 Ducru-Beaucaillou, St-Julien
SKU #1457698
100 points
Jeb Dunnuck
Reminding me of the 2010 with its incredible stature and class (as opposed to the more opulently styled 2009), the 2016 Château Ducru-Beaucaillou is a legendary wine from the genius of Bruno Borie, who has managed this estate brilliantly since he arrived in 2003. A blend of 85% Cabernet Sauvignon and 15% Merlot brought up all in new oak, the 2016 has a mammoth bouquet of crème de cassis, espresso, camphor, crushed violets, toasty oak, and graphite. Full-bodied, concentrated, and backward on the palate, it nevertheless has perfectly integrated acidity and building tannins, a concentrated, layered texture, off-the-charts purity of fruit, and a finish that won't quit. Give this powerful, concentrated wine a solid 7-8 years of bottle age and enjoy it over the following 50 years or more.
(2/2019)
99 points
James Suckling
Super perfumed, attractive violets with a thread of fresh blueberries, cassis, blackberries and dark plums, delivering a very enticing impression. Beautiful ripeness here. The tannins are perfectly ripe and layers meld into each other, carrying deep, graceful and plush, velvety dark fruit long into the vibrant and seductive, chocolate-laced finish. Great potential.
(1/2019)
98 points
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Deep garnet-purple colored, the 2016 Ducru-Beaucaillou features a wonderfully savory, earthy/meaty nose, delivering well-defined notes of tapenade, truffles, charcuterie and sautéed herbs over crème de cassis, wild blueberries and kirsch with wafts of pencil lead and menthol. Medium to full-bodied, the palate is built like a brick house with the taut, muscular fruit well framed by very firm yet very ripe and finely grained tannins, offering a quiet intensity of red fruit and mineral sparks and finishing with epic length. (LPB)
(11/2018)
98 points
Wine Enthusiast
This wine conveys density but its richness is sublimated by the complex structure and beautiful ripe fruit. Its power comes from the structure as much as the fruit, promising a wine with an immensely long life ahead of it. (RV)
(5/2019)
97 points
Vinous
The 2016 Ducru-Beaucaillou, bottled in August 2018, is very deep in color. It has a tightly wound bouquet of blackberry, boysenberry and minerals and a faint estuarine tang of oyster shells. The palate is medium-bodied with very fine tannin, layers of pure blackberry and wild strawberry, and veins of blue fruit tinged with a conspicuous graphite note that becomes more pronounced with aeration. This is almost a Pauillac-like Ducru-Beaucaillou, quite noble and blue-blooded. A wine that should give 40 to 50 years of drinking pleasure. (NM)
(1/2019)
97 points
Wine Spectator
Offers exotic, cashmere-textured, mocha-infused blackberry, cassis and plum puree flavors, with smoldering incense and warm fruitcake notes and a swath of plush yet serious grip too boot, showing ample depth and breath. As distinctive a Bordeaux as there is these days. (JM)
(3/2019)
Jancis Robinson
Very dark. Racy and sinewy with lots of richness and energy. Smooth and supple and quite sweet – arguably too sweet? – but with masses of tannins buried down there. Blackberry compote mixed with health juice. (JR) 17/20
(4/2017)