Compelling from start to finish, the black, purple color invites you in. From there, the perfume, with its array of flowers, black, red, and blue fruit, chocolate, espresso, licorice, and liqueur lets you know you are in for a treat. And, that happens as soon as the multiple waves of fruit start coating your palate with their layers of perfectly ripe, silky, seductive, fresh, opulent, velvety, pure black, red, and blueberries. Along with 2016, 2018, 2020, and 2022, this is in line to be one of the best vintages ever produced at Ducru Beaucaillou! The wine blends 80% Cabernet Sauvignon with 20% Merlot. Drink from 2030-2065.

A blend of 80% Cabernet Sauvignon and 20% Merlot, the 2019 Ducru-Beaucaillou is deep garnet-purple in color. It has closed a little since last tasting a few months ago, requiring considerable shaking to bring out notes of blackcurrant pastilles, redcurrant jelly, and wild blueberries plus hints of lilacs, mocha, and black olives. The medium to full-bodied palate is packed with bright, vibrant, black fruit with a lively backbone and very fine-grained tannins, finishing long and fragrant. This is beautiful! - Lisa Perrotti-Brown

This is so seductive on the nose, with perfumes of violets, blackcurrants, raspberries, and orange peel. Subtle. Ethereal. Full-bodied with such fine tannins and delicacy, with great length and beauty. Sophisticated and refined. Really amazing purity and depth. Great length, too. 80% cabernet sauvignon and 20% merlot. Leave this for at least five or six years.

If you like your St Juliens with finesse and balance, head to the 2019 vintage of Ducru, with its gorgeous slate, pencil lead, cigar box, cassis, bilberry, and mint leaf focus. This has tension and restrained tannic architecture, and yet opens up mid palate to allow the fruit to show its creamy side. Such clever construction, and hard to resist. Harvest September 20 to October 10. 3.8ph, 100% new oak. Emmanuel Bonneau technical director, Eric Boissenot consultant.

(98+ points) Following the 2018 (and tasted next to the 2020), the 2019 Château Ducru-Beaucaillou comes across as more refined and elegant, with a straight, focused, still full-bodied profile that has pure cassis and blue-tinged fruits as well as textbook tobacco leaf, violets, and graphite. It’s a regal, refined, aristocratic Ducru Beaucaillou that has ultra-fine tannins and a layered, seamless mouthfeel, and while it’s seriously concentrated, it stays graceful and light on its feet. It’s closed down slightly since release, so this beauty needs a solid 7-8 years in the cellar.

Rich, ripe, heady nose filled with milk chocolate, blackcurrant and black cherry with floral touches. This is a beguiling wine, starting off smooth and velvety with a bright cherry freshness that is fun and playful before settling and deepening into a black fruit profile, seductively drawing you in and presenting layer upon layer of acidity, flavour and tannins that, despite being abundant and mouth filling are juicy, soft and fine. Precision winemaking on show here, and across the entire range of wines this year. This is complex and defined with an aerial finish that's filled with crushed stone and freshly picked mint. A glass of wine you just want to sit with and think about. One to buy and hold on to. Drinking Window 2025 - 2045

(96+ points) Powerful and muscular, the 2019 Ducru-Beaucaillou offers up aromas of cassis, raspberries and cherries mingled with notions of violets and iris, framed by a generous application of creamy new oak. Full-bodied, velvety and concentrated, it's rich but lively, with a deep core of fruit and an ample endowment of ripe, powdery tannins. Fuller maturity and a more rigorous selection over the last two decades have brought what proprietor Bruno Borie characterizes as additional "punch" to this wine, in the form of unprecedented levels of anthocyanins and tannins, but all that substance and structure will require some patience before we'll see if Ducru is still Saint-Julien's most elegant wine. - William Kelley

The 2019 Ducru Beaucaillou has a pastille-like purity on the nose - black cherries, blueberry, quite floral and Margaux-like in style. The palate is medium-bodied with pliant tannins, showy and opulent, yet undeniably there is real backbone behind this Saint-Julien. Velvety smooth on the finish, this is the right way to produce decadent Left Bank Bordeaux. Fabulous. Tasted blind at the Southwold annual tasting. -- Neal Martin