Château Léoville Barton 2012

Dense ruby/purple, with cassis licorice and forest floors notes in the aromatics, Léoville-Barton’s 2012 is a relatively big, rich, masculine style of wine. This full-bodied wine needs 5-8 years of cellaring and should evolve easily for 25-30 years.

Features a chewy edge, with anise, blackberry and black currant fruit notes held together by an ample dose of roasted apple wood. A chewy feel holds the finish, with plum skin and singed wood details lingering. This feels like it may have dried out just a bit since the barrel tasting. Best from 2016 through 2022. 12,500 cases made.

94–96. Barrel sample. Firmly tannic in character, this wine is dry and extracted. There's potential for this powerful, impressive wine to bear the wine's very dry character with the weight of its fruit.

Stylish, sweet, fresh-tasting. Midweight but well balanced and a good result in this vintage. 83% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Merlot and 2% Cabernet Franc.

Floral and fruity red with hints of vanilla. Medium to full body, fine tannins and a crisp finish. Loosely knit. This needs three or four years to come together. Better after 2018.

Filled with juicy, ripe cassis, cedar wood, tobacco, soft tannins, length and freshness, this is a really nice wine that will improve with age.

Classic and restrained style, good weight and elegant fruit, a bit backward with present tannin, high acidity and long finish, potent but needing time.

A more mid-weight, elegant expression from this château, the 2012 Château Léoville Barton is nevertheless an outstanding wine with plenty to love. Revealing a vivid ruby hue as well as beautiful cassis and darker currant fruits, it has lots of graphite, cedar pencil, and spicy notes, medium body, a light, elegant mouthfeel, and soft, ultra-fine tannins. This complex, elegant Barton shines with just an hour of air and will continue drinking nicely over the coming 10-15 years.

Deep purple, dense at the core, with a garnet sheen at the rim. A delicate bouquet, blueberry-driven with fine tobacco nuances and a clear touch of cedar; medium weight. A hint of geraniol on the second pass; on the third, the Cabernet Sauvignon turns increasingly green, showing a Chilean accent with a touch of eucalyptus and grassy notes as well. Very pleasant on the palate tannin-wise, creating a certain astringency; here too, traces of under-ripe Cabernet Sauvignon can be sensed. A “Barton light” that will soon know how to please. In a way, it reminds me of the 1993 at this en primeur tasting. I must have tasted it six times. We’ve been rather spoiled so far by this usually reliable serial winner, and this time it came out a bit tight at 17/20.

Deep purple, concentrated at the core, with a garnet sheen at the rim. Delicate bouquet, blueberry-driven with fine tobacco nuances and a distinct cedar touch; medium intensity. A hint of geraniol on the second pass; on the third, it turns increasingly Cabernet Sauvignon-green and shows a Chilean accent with a pinch of eucalyptus as well as grassy notes. Very pleasant tannins on the palate, creating a certain astringency; here too, traces of slightly underripe Cabernet Sauvignon can be sensed. A Barton-light that will soon know how to please. Somehow it reminds me of the 1993 at this en primeur tasting. I must have tasted it six times. You’ve been rather spoiled so far by this usually reliable serial winner. And now, at 17/20, it’s come out a bit tight. 14: Tasted again at the estate shortly before bottling. Light, but very easy to drink thanks to its fine sweetness.

Elegant, deep, dense bouquet with blackberry, blackcurrant cassis, mahogany, fine herbs, dark chocolate and smoke. Tightly knit, powerful, multi-layered palate with velvety fruit, a silky structure, a wide range of aromas, plenty of fine tannins, and a very long, dense finish with sweet lingering notes. 19/20 2019 - 2040

As with most of these St Juliens, the colour is medium intensity ruby with lovely reflective pools. Sweet notes of smoked caramel, graphite and campfire stealing in along blackberry and cassis fruits. Overall the fruit register is dark, with tannins that are perfectly integrated but still present, confident and holding the fruit in place. The same sappy saline minerality that I found in the Gruaud Larose, not generous but enticing. 60% new oak, 32hm/h yield.

The 2012 Leoville Barton has a medium to deep garnet-brick color. It wafts effortlessly out of the glass with evocative scents of boysenberries, juicy black plums, and crème de cassis, followed by earthy/minerally suggestions of iron ore, pencil lead, and charcoal. The medium-bodied palate offers a firm, grainy texture and bright acidity to counter the taut black fruit and earthy nuances, finishing long and energetic.

As usual, Léoville-Barton saves the day in this challenging vintage. However, it is a little more structured than usual, a little less velvety but without any tannic harshness, even though the tannins are very present, as the 2012 vintage would suggest. Give it a few more years in the cellar.

Cabernet Sauvignon clearly dominates the bouquet of Barton 2012, with eucalyptus notes to the fore. Alongside this, classic nuances of black berries, tobacco leaf and graphite underscore the bouquet’s authenticity. On the palate, the wine is rather slender yet expressive, well supported by compact tannins that show to good effect on the finish. A wine with an elegant, fresh and fruity finish. It still has a little time ahead of it.

Logo on the cork: JL (Lafitte Liège) Dark colour, medium intensity and slightly evolved. Moderately aromatic nose, with ripe fruit and a floral touch. Supple, fruity, flavoursome and enjoyable palate, finishing on a smooth, lightly liquorice-tinged finish.