Château Beauséjour 2021

Presents loganberry and black currant fruit with a mulled edge, while savory black tea and bay leaf notes add range and nuance. Also reveals a subtle juicy edge, giving this a bit more drive than most of its peers in this vintage. Merlot and Cabernet Franc. Drink now through 2036. 1,070 cases made.

Pink floral and raspberry aromas, fragrant red cherries and just-ripe strawberries. Incredibly well textured, alive and forward in the glass, this has energy and lift. A really pure and precise bite to the fruit with excellent acidity and style. A delicious, moreish wine, revealing layers of flavour and texture with lovely gentle acidity and a soft, cooling menthol minerality that lingers.

The 2021 Beauséjour-Duffau, previously Duffau-Lagarrosse, has developed a lovely bouquet that builds on the promise I found from barrel. The Cabernet Franc (27%) brings complexity, adding dark berry fruit, licorice, and a touch of black truffle that becomes more pronounced with time. The palate is medium-bodied with supple tannins and fine depth, showing a hint of dark chocolate on the entry, white pepper, and clove. It tapers slightly toward a saline finish, likely due more to the growing season than anything else. This will need three or four years in bottle, but it should cruise nicely for 20 years.

Dark ruby garnet, purple tinge to the rim. Delicate herbal savouriness, black forest berries, fresh cherries, a hint of exotic spiciness, a hint of liquorice. Juicy, elegant, red berry fruit, fresh and mineral, fine, ripe tannins, salty-lemon; a fine, light-footed wine with ageing potential.

The 2021 Château Beausejour (Duffau-Lagarrosse) checks in as 63% Merlot and 27% Cabernet Franc that was harvested between September 30 and October 14 and was raised in 58% new French oak for 14 months, with the wine spending a few months in tank before bottling. It has a healthy ruby/purple hue as well as an incredible bouquet of black raspberries, ripe cherries, graphite, crushed stone, and hints of spicy herbs. This beauty is medium to full-bodied, has remarkable density on the mid-palate, and ultra-fine tannins. It's clearly in the top handful of wines in the vintage, offering density, terrific purity, and fabulous length. It's never going to be a blockbuster, but it’s an incredibly elegant, seamless wine that will have two decades or more of longevity. Bravo.

Kunz barrel sample 2022: Velvety, fruity, sweet, powerful bouquet with raspberries, strawberry jelly, pralines, mint, delicate nougat. Densely interwoven, elegant, fresh palate with powerful, precise fruit, fragrant sweet aromatics, fine tannins, a gently creamy texture, and a long, powerful finish.

Captures the spirit of the vintage, in its austerity and savoury character, and rises well above it, with finesse and a pumice-stone texture that gives grip and slows the progression across the palate. Lemongrass, peony, rose petals, graphite, gunsmoke, raspberry and redcurrant. Harvest from September 30 to October 10, yield 28 hl/ha, 58% new oak. Camille Devillenaut is co-technical director with Joséphine Duffau-Lagarrosse, coming over from Château Villemaurine. First year with Axel Marchal as consultant, working alongside Julien Viaud, replacing the Nicolas Thienpont team. Tasted twice, this is a clear standout in the vintage.

The 2021 Beausejour Duffau-Lagarrosse has a medium to deep garnet-purple color. It reveals evocative notes of black raspberries, kirsch, and juicy blackberries, leading to nuances of violets and aniseed. The medium-bodied palate is wonderfully perfumed and lively, with plush tannins and a long mineral-laced finish. Seriously impressive!

In this challenging 2021 vintage, Beauséjour JDL stands out beautifully. A graphite and licorice note suggests a fresh, northern expression (27% Cabernet Franc alongside Merlot), more oceanic than continental. Everything has been masterfully handled to deliver concentration, substance, refined tannins, and to convey the limestone character of the terroir in a mouthwatering finish full of flair. Probably one of the 2021 Saint-Émilions that will evolve with the greatest serenity.

The precise, well-judged character displayed during the en primeur tastings remains one of Beauséjour’s hallmarks. Floral nuances combined with fresh fruitiness herald a wine that is precise and powerful, yet brimming with tension and juiciness. A wine that reminds us that beyond power, finesse is a sign that underscores a wine’s greatness and depth. It is far more difficult to persuade by whispering than by shouting—and it’s often much more effective!

The nose is fruity, fresh, racy, deep, and pleasantly saline (even iodized), offering purity, fine definition, and concentration in its fruit. It reveals notes of fleshy/juicy Boysenberry, fairly ripe blackcurrant, and, more subtly, fairly ripe strawberry, with touches of iodine, chocolate, and Bourbon vanilla. Lovely delicacy. The palate is nicely fresh, elegant, gourmand, juicy, and pulpy, offering precision, a fresh backbone, tension, voluptuousness, finesse, a fine racy grain, depth, and a multilayered character. Beautiful fruit quality, ripe yet fresh. On the palate, this wine shows notes of pulpy/creamy blackberry, crushed strawberry, and, more subtly, chocolate, with saline/iodized touches, hints of violet, small pulpy fruits, a hint of crunchy plum, and fine hints of racy minerality, sweet spices, and chocolate. The tannins are sapid and supple. Lovely suppleness and sapidity on the finish. An imperceptible, almost sapid/varietal note in the background. Lovely persistence.

Dark, intense, and beautiful color. Very aromatic nose—delicate, fruity, pure, ripe, subtle, and vanillary. Delicate on entry, very fruity mid-palate, full of flavor, with a supple body that emphasizes aroma over structure; the wine glides into a long, very pleasant finish. Blend: 73% Merlot, 27% Cabernet Franc. Alcohol: 13.5% – pH: 3.6. Yield: 27 hl/ha. No chaptalization. Harvest dates: September 30 to October 2 for Merlot, October 14 for Cabernet Franc. For now, the press wine has not been added.

The perfume offers flowers, black cherries, licorice, chocolate-covered plums, crushed rocks, stones, and espresso as its aromatic profile. On the palate, the wine is silky, spicy, vibrant, refined, and focused on its supple-textured, red plum and dark cherry profile. The long finish is loaded with sweet, ripe red fruits with a touch of salted chocolate that appears at the very end. This is quite successful for the vintage. The blend is 73% Merlot and 27% Cabernet Franc. Yields were low at only 28 hectoliters per hectare. This is the first vintage to sport its new label and its now abbreviated name. Drink from 2026 to 2055.