Evocative and moreish, a Ducru that beguiles and delights from the start with a scented nose full of cedar, rose, violets, cherries and damsons - a riot of Cabernet typicity. Vibrant and pulsing on the palate, this has grip and intention from the get-go. Massy, full and wide in the mouth - there’s density and this is broad but it’s delicate too - a sense of weightlessness with such movement and energy and a soft sweet, succulent grip throughout. Powerful with present tannins that unravel slowly so there’s time to appreciate the details as they come. A thoughtful and intellectual wine that leaves a smile on your face. Drinking Window: 2028 - 2050
Tasted by: Georgina Hindle (at Bordeaux, 03 Jan 2023)
Part of Bordeaux 2020 in bottle: overview plus top-scoring wines

With a dark hue, you instantly find incense, black cherries, flowers, spice, and a plethora of red and black fruits. The wine is concentrated, full-bodied, ripe, rich, soft, and polished. There is purity to the fruit, silk to the tannins, complexity on the mid-palate, and length in the finish. The fruit is bright, fresh, and pure with a beautiful sensation of elegance from start to finish. This gem should start to really unfurl after its 10th birthday and provide fabulous drinking for 25-35 years after that. This is a stunningly graceful Ducru Beaucaillou. Produced from blending 81% Cabernet Sauvignon and 19% Merlot, 13.5% ABV. Picking took place September 11 - September 30. Drink from 2027-2055. Tasted Aug 2023

Blackcurrants and blueberries with violets and crushed stone. Extremely aromatic. Full-bodied but very tight and reserved, with racy, almost steely tannins. Some subtle sweet fruit in the center palate. Great transparency and clarity. Super precision here. Vertical and polished. Try after 2028.

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.
vinous.com

Drink Date
2027 - 2052

Reviewed by - Lisa Perrotti-Brown

The 2020 Ducru-Beaucaillou is a blend of 81% Cabernet Sauvignon and 19% Merlot, aging for approximately 18 months in 100% new barriques. It has a pH of 3.83, 13.5% alcohol and an IPT (total polyphenol index) of 90. Opaque purple-black colored, the nose slowly unfurls to reveal tantalizing scents of crushed blackcurrants, wild blueberries and boysenberries, leading to suggestions of chocolate mint, star anise, red roses and unsmoked cigars with a waft of cedar chest. The medium-bodied palate delivers impactful, muscular black fruits with a firm frame of ripe, fine-grained tannins and seamless freshness, finishing long and fragrant.

(81% CS, 19% M; 33% harvest; 13.5% ABV; 100% new)
A fine Cabernet nose with a discreet new-oak vanilla, refined and very gently mineral; medium-full, very fresh in acidity, and with Ducru’s trade-mark super-fine texture, but this year’s fairly firm tannins; a rich, elegant wine with, clear to perceive, the extra sinew and masculinity that Bruno has said he is looking for in recent vintages, noticeable as a little more extract, making the wine that little bit firmer, and which will make it longer to mellow as well; typically long and effortless and graceful across the palate, and with a lovely, gentle, mineral-fragrant finish. Succulent, juicy, complex, and classy, but also aristocratic, upright, and a touch severe in bearing. It will be very rewarding in the long term. A sort of refined version of 2010 here, less muscle, more polish, lower alcohol, and, as so often, rubbing shoulders with the first growths. 2035–60+.

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. Dec 2023