Château Ducru-Beaucaillou Saint Julien 2020

Another legendary Ducru Beaucaillou in the making, the 2020 Château Ducru-Beaucaillou hasn't budged since release. Full-bodied, concentrated, and layered, it has incredible purity in its cassis and darker, almost blue fruits, some classic yet primary tobacco, graphite, and mineral notes, a dense mid-palate, and awesome length on the finish. It's very much in the style of the 2010 and deserves at least a decade of bottle age. I won't be around to taste it, but I suspect this will still be offering pleasure on its 100th birthday.

The 2020 Ducru Beaucaillou was picked from 11-30 September, matured entirely in new oak for an expected 18 months. It has a very succinct bouquet, not one that leaps from the glass and demands attention, but it unfolds slowly, at its own pace, revealing enticing scents of blackberry, cedar, iris petals and crushed stone. The palate is medium-bodied with sappy black fruit. There is a saline spine that runs through this Saint-Julien from start to finish, a quite enormous structure that exerts grip towards the finish. It is not a Ducru-Beaucaillou that goes out to deliver finesse or understatement, but one that you will have to cellar for a few years, pull out and have the superlatives ready. This is an immense and cerebral Ducru-Beaucaillou from Bruno Borie and his team.

96-98. Barrel Sample. The tannins are dense while the texture shows a dusty suspended character that gives the wine great charm. Yet, having said that, the concentration will give this wine long term aging both from the acidity and the structure.

The 2020 Ducru-Beaucaillou unwinds in the glass with aromas of dark berries, pencil shavings, violets and pipe tobacco, all framed by creamy new oak. On the palate, it's medium to full-bodied, fleshy and concentrated, with a deep but tightly wound core that's still quite wrapped up in extract and oak tannin, even if it isn't quite as big-boned as its 2019 counterpart. It will require some patience.