85% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Merlot

Neal Martin: 97, James Suckling: 99

Neal Martin: The 2016 Ducru-Beaucaillou, bottled in August 2018, is very deep in color. It has a tightly wound bouquet of blackberry, boysenberry and minerals and a faint estuarine tang of oyster shells. The palate is medium-bodied with very fine tannin, layers of pure blackberry and wild strawberry, and veins of blue fruit tinged with a conspicuous graphite note that becomes more pronounced with aeration. This is almost a Pauillac-like Ducru-Beaucaillou, quite noble and blue-blooded. A wine that should give 40 to 50 years of drinking pleasure.