2020 Château Ducru-Beaucaillou La Croix de Beaucaillou
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How full and heavy the wine feels in your mouth, like the difference between skimmed milk and cream. More alcohol, sugar and oak ageing make a wine fuller.
The drying, grippy feel on your gums and tongue, as with strong tea. It comes from the skins and seeds of black grapes and from oak, and softens with age.
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The bars follow how sommeliers taste (WSET): body, tannin, sweetness and acidity, each from low to high.
Body: full-bodied. Like most red wines from ; 14% alcohol.
Tannin: firm. Aged in oak.
Sweetness: dry. Red wine from is almost always dry.
Acidity: medium. The temperate climate of Médoc.
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Log inThe wines of La Croix Ducru-Beaucaillou come from the vineyard of Château Ducru-Beaucaillou. This exceptional terroir of the Médoc is located between the Gironde river in the east, the center and the west of the Saint-Julien appellation. The estate owes its name to its "beautiful pebbles" ("beaux cailloux", in French) which, due to their high quartz content, create soils that are poor in nutrients for plants.
It is precisely this "agrological" scarcity, as the late Bordeaux professor and geographer René Pijassou described it, that makes them so suitable for the production of good wine. In the east, the plots are planted along the rolling Médoc ridges, just above the estuary, while those in the epicentre benefit from a microclimate fed by the small stream of La Mouline that meanders through the centre of the appellation from west to east before disappearing into the Gironde.
La Croix Ducru-Beaucaillou is a fine wine that perfectly expresses its exceptional terroir. This is not a second wine as such, as it comes from a dedicated part of the vineyard, located on the south bank of La Mouline. Matured in 60% new oak for an expected duration of 12 months, the 2020 La Croix Ducru-Beaucaillou is initially pleasantly reduced on the nose. After some time in the glass, the wine opens up with intense aromas of black fruit, interwoven with notes of black olive and subtle brackish, coastal scents. On the palate, the wine is medium-bodied with a pleasantly powdery texture. It is a structured Saint-Julien with a clear backbone and grip on the finish. Yet the wine remains extremely refined in balance, with a noticeable saltiness on the aftertaste. Excellent and is the perfect introduction to the Borie signature.
Character
The wine
Origin
Bottle
Wine features
Parker
The Wine Advocate
RP 91
Reviewed by:
William Kelley
Release Price:
NA
Drink Date:
2023 - 2043
Unwinding in the glass with aromas of dark berries, plums, violets and licorice, the 2020 La Croix de Beaucaillou is medium to full-bodied, supple and fleshy, with a pure core of perfumed fruit and a charming, precise profile.
With its optimally situated gravel soils on the bank of the Gironde around its grand 19th-century château, Ducru-Beaucaillou can boast one of the finest terroirs of the entire Médoc. Planted at a density of 10,000 vines per hectare and farmed organically since 2018, with high canopies and seasonal cover crops, the percentage of Cabernet Sauvignon is increasing at the expense of Merlot. Macerations are classical, followed by élevage in long-seasoned new oak barrels, and only around one-third of the estate's Saint-Julien production makes it into the grand vin. Proprietor Bruno Borie envisages Ducru as something of a Renaissance villa, with its vegetable garden and livestock raised on site as well as viticulture, and he lives on the property. But Borie's vision is also modern, with an in-house research-and-development department.
Published: Apr 06, 2023
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James Suckling
Score
95
Avg Price (ex-tax)
$ 53
La Croix Ducru-Beaucaillou St.-Julien 2020
Thursday, Mar 30, 2023
Color
Red
Country
France
Region
Bordeaux
Vintage
2020
Aromas of currants, orange peel and dried flowers. Minerals. Medium to full body, fine and lightly chewy tannins, and a long and linear finish. Hints of salt. Crushed stone. Flavorful and bright. A little closed. Needs time to open. 53% cabernet sauvignon, 44% merlot, and 3% petit verdot. Better after 2027.
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Vinous
(92-94)
Drinking Window
2025 - 2045
From: Vingt-Vingt Vins: Bordeaux 2020 (May 2021)
The 2020 La Croix Ducru-Beaucaillou, matured in 60% new oak for an expected 12 months, is pleasantly reduced on the nose, opening up in the glass with intense black fruit laced with black olive and subtle estuarine scents. The palate is medium-bodied with an appealing powdery texture. A structured Saint-Julien with tangible backbone and grip on the finish. Yet, there is exquisite balance and impressive salinity on the aftertaste. Excellent.
- By Neal Martin on June 2021
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- Deuxième Grand Cru Classé en 1855
The Borie family has now owned this stately château for three generations, overlooking the Gironde. Since he took over the château in 2003, Bruno Borie has had only one goal: to make Ducru-Beaucaillou one of the best wines in the Médoc. The vineyards are planted with cabernet sauvignon (70%) and merlot (30%). As the name of the château implies, Château Ducru-Beaucaillou is blessed with a grand pebble-rich terroir that produces perfect cabernet sauvignon. Château Ducru-Beaucaillou takes its name from its "beautiful pebbles" ("beaux Cailloux", in French) which geologists less romantically refer to as Gunzian gravel. These quartz pebbles were deposited by the ancient Garonne at the beginning of the early Quaternary, some two million years ago. It is enough to take a walk through the vineyards to find rich lithological finds. Lydian jasper from the Pyrenees, flint, quartz, agatoids ... This Gunzian gravel creates soils poor in plant nutrients. But it is precisely their agricultural scarcity that guarantees the qualitative excellence of the wines. A choice from nature.
At Ducru-Beaucaillou, excellence is formed inch by inch thanks to an understanding of what the vines have to offer. Experience, intuition, asking questions, for a symbiosis with Mother Earth; people only pass through these noble terroirs. Since nature is a "subject of law", every procedure in the vineyard respects the entire ecosystem: herbicides have been abandoned in favor of mechanical weeds and judicious turf; replacing chemical fertilizers with manure and quality compost; insecticides with pheromones to control vine moths or kaolin clay to lure the green locust. Measures to facilitate aeration and sun exposure of the bunches, to avoid Botrytis and, if applicable, bacilli. Constant monitoring of available nitrogen before harvest. Reasonable viticulture, which earned the property ISO 14001 certification in 2016, supplemented with HVE3 certification (high environmental value level 3) since 2017.
Deze 2020 La Croix de Beaucaillou toont een geconcentreerd smaakpalet van zwarte bessen en pruim, viooltjes en een hint van drop en zwarte olijf, ondersteund door fijne, poederige tannines, ziltige mineraliteit en een strakke, elegante structuur. Door die fruitige concentratie, frisse zuren en uitgesproken tannine- en ziltigheid combineert hij prachtig met rundvlees, lamsgerechten, wild en rijke charcuterie; denk aan een gegrilde entrecote of côte de boeuf, langzaam gegaard lam met rozemarijn of gestoofd wild met jeneverbes en paddenstoelen, en bij charcuterie vooral bij gerijpte saucisson, pata negra of rijke leverpaté, omdat de wijn de vette smaken snijdt en tegelijk de hartige aroma's versterkt.
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