Robert Parker, tasting note published in March 25th 2012
This great wine (almost 15% natural alcohol) is a blend of 77% Merlot, 19% Cabernet Franc and 4% Cabernet Sauvignon. It displays an opaque blue/purple colour along with a lovely bouquet of charcoal, incense, truffles, blackberry jam, blackcurrant, raspberry and flowers. Although huge in the mouth, the limestone soils in which the grapes are grown give the wine good freshness as well as laser-like clarity and precision. Incredible on the palate, this huge, super-concentrated powerhouse comes across as ethereal and almost feminine despite its extravagant fruit, density and richness. It is surely a modern-day legend! Anticipated maturity: 2025-2050+
As I wrote after tasting this barrel-aged cuvee, it is clearly the greatest Beausejour-Duffau since the immortal 1990. Under new management, the brilliant duo of Nicolas Thienpont and Stephane Derenoncourt are developing what is one of the great hillside terroirs of Bordeaux and St.-Emilion.
In the Duffau-Lagarosse family since 1847, Beauséjour (HDL for the initiated) was sold last year to the Courtin family (Clarins group), associated with Joséphine Duffau-Lagarosse, an agricultural engineer and winemaker who holds 11% of the shares. Her father, Vincent, managed the estate on behalf of his 32 heirs while Joséphine was making wine abroad. Back in France, she was technical director at Château du Taillan, then at the Bernard Magrez group, just before taking over the first growth on the west coast, which had been run by the Nicolas Thienpont-David Suire team. It thus vinified its first vintage in 2021 in a concrete vat adapted to the plot of this terroir with three soil types, the clay-limestone of the plateau, the clay of the hillside and a sandy plot. The wines are aged in the quarries under the castle.
