Château Ducru-Beaucaillou 2025

Such a vivid and vibrant colour in the glass with a bright pink rim. Ripe almost heady aromatics – perfumed bramble fruits with a dried floral aspect and dark chocolate. Ripe and massy in the mouth, not as sexy and smooth as Ducru can be, this is more grainy and a little grippy with the tannins and structure clearly on show and dark fruit in the background. Serious, sultry even, with oak on show – liquorice and clove spice. The aromatic display is quite incredible, certainly full of intensity but this hasn't settled yet. Mouthwatering acidity, great tannin structure, there’s a lot going on with this wine. Ends cool and fresh and lifted. I love the intensity, quite unlike many other wines this vintage – this is built like a racehorse, muscular and filling but chewy and soft too. I love the personality and think this wine has a long life ahead. There’s purity, clarity and gloss. 3.74pH. A yield of 22hl/ha. Harvest 2–23 September.

5 Spice, roses, irises, and white flowers are only part of the aromatic display. You also enjoy licorice, espresso, smoke, tobacco, blackberries, and black cherries. However, the palate owns the show with its display of sensuous, silky, refined black and red fruits, Asian spices, chocolate, herbs, and mint leaf. The expansive finish combines power with elegance. Everything is in balance, providing a lingering, seamless endnote that allows you to experience the purity and wealth of fruit, which lingers for over 60 seconds. Produced from blending 79% Cabernet Sauvignon, with 21% Merlot, 13.44% ABV, 3.74 pH. Picking took place from September 2 -- September 23. 2025 marks the earliest and the longest harvest in the history of the estate. Yields were 22 hectoliters per hectare. Drink from 2032-2070. 98-100 Pts

Stunning, nuanced, and just full of joy. Reserved flesh, toasted cumin, fresh blueberries and raspberries with rich seams of cassis, fresh pomegranate, and cappuccino, this is very Ducru in its width and breadth, but with a freshness and lift that is very much of the 2025 vintage. Almost certainly this will close down for a number of years, but all is well controlled, with quiet confidence. A wine you will be happy to spend a lot of time with. 3.74 pH. Harvest September 2 to 23, 100% new oak. Bruno Borie owner.

The finesse and depth of the bouquet are immediately apparent. Straightforward, yet precise and methodical. I feel as though I’m talking with my friend Bruno Borie! Its subtlety and complexity open the door to a thousand and one sensations, with each element complementing the next with rare precision. The bouquet alone reveals the greatness of Ducru Beaucaillou. Along the way, among other notes, one picks up hints of graphite, cedar, blackberries and licorice wood. On the palate, the wine impresses with its ability to frame its power, to unveil its details with finesse and accuracy, and to express its clear link to the gravel-and-clay terroir (Graves de Güns). The tannins are textured and grippy, yet remain fine and subtle. They deliver a calm, precise vigor, partnered by an acidity that is as incisive as it is structuring, championing the wine’s character while keeping finesse firmly in sight. A moving, touching Ducru—so true to itself, so magnificent. It doesn’t even need to adapt to time; it stands on its own, not out of caprice but out of sincerity. A true personality: commanding, persistent, exhilarating!

A deep, complex nose with dark fruit, smoky notes, herbal spice and floral hints; the palate is powerful, almost like two mouthfuls of wine at once—concentration meets freshness here, with masses of tannins finely interwoven with the fruit; the finish is saline, long-lasting and very spicy. Needs time to age.