Château Ducru-Beaucaillou 2021

Jeb Dunnuck

Lastly, the 2021 Château Ducru-Beaucaillou might be the wine of the vintage. It has more depth and density than just about every other wine out there, all while still bringing beautiful tannins and elegance. A blend of 98% Cabernet Sauvignon and 2% Merlot, harvested from September 21 to October 10th, it was vinified in wooden tronconique tanks and is still aging in new barrels. This beauty hit 12.5% natural alcohol, with a pH of 3.88 and an IPT that's just about off the charts. Deep black and blue fruits, graphite, spicy oak, tobacco, and chalky minerality all define the bouquet, and it hits the palate with medium to full-bodied richness, a concentrated, powerful mouthfeel, building yet fine tannins, and a great finish. Where most 2021s are going to offer plenty of up-front appeal, this is going to benefit from a solid 4-6 years of bottle age and be incredibly long lived.

JEFF LEVE, THE WINE CELLAR INSIDER

Cigar box, tobacco leaf, wet earth, blackberry, flowers, and black currants fill the nose. On the palate, the wine is fresh, polished, soft, and energetic, with a spice, and leafy-tinted finish that leaves you with dark cherries and currants on the backend. There is length, purity, lift, and softness in the finish. This is one of the potential candidates for wine of the vintage. Classic (In a modern way) in style, the wine is a blend of 98% Cabernet Sauvignon and 2% Merlot. This is the highest percentage of Cabernet Sauvignon in the history of the estate. 12.5% ABV, 3.88 pH, The yields were a scant 25 hectoliters per hectare. Harvest took place September 28 - October 11. Drink from 2026-2055.

ADRIAN VAN VELSEN - VVWINE.CH

James Suckling

Firm, structured and pure with a cool and solid core of dark currants, blackberries, tar, pencil lead and bitter chocolate. Hints of tobacco, too. Firm but silky tannins. Very pure, with a long, mineral finish. Intense and very focused. 98% cabernet sauvignon and 2% merlot.

Decanter Magazine

Beautiful and beguiling nose, perfumed blackcurrants and dark fruits; damsons, plums, raspberries and rose petals. Lovely crunchy fruit, real bite and presence in the mouth. Excellent precision, tannins are succulent and ripe they fill the mouth with a juicy, intense granular texture. There is such depth to this - perfume, tobacco, earth, violets and concentrated fruits that have a verticality to them with an unprecedented 98% of Cabernet Sauvignon providing the support and the backbone. There is a crystalline purity to the fruit giving tension to the overall frame, it’s focussed and driven all with excellent definition. This is not a wallflower of a wine - it’s charming and confident, strutting its stuff right now and giving you absolut St-Julien terroir and vintage markers in the glass with slate, graphite and liquorice salinity on show. Skilled winemaking on show.

Robert Parker Wine Advocate

A wine that will delight Médoc purists, the 2021 Ducru-Beaucaillou is a blend of fully 98% Cabernet Sauvignon and 2% Merlot and checks in at a mere 12.5% alcohol. Unwinding in the glass with aromas of dark berries, cigar wrapper, violets, loamy soil and spices, it's full-bodied, layered and velvety, with superb depth at the core, lively acids and powdery tannins. Complete and penetrating, it's a true classic, reminiscent of a modern-day version of Ducru's brilliant 1996—though today's precision winemaking means that the 2021 is unlikely to go through so long a hibernation as that vintage.