The 2021 Ducru-Beaucaillou captures all the potential it showed from barrel. A delicate, understated wine, the 2021 impresses above all else with its finesse. All the elements are impeccably balanced throughout. Time in the glass brings out the wine's inner sweetness and gorgeous perfume. The balance with oak, at times a challenge here, is also flawless. With lower alcohol and therefore also less extraction from oak than recent vintages, the 2021 is shaping up to be a modern-day classic. The blend is 98% Cabernet Sauvignon and 2% Merlot, the highest amount of Cabernet Sauvignon ever here. What a wine. -- Antonio Galloni

(JS 96-97 points) 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.

Classy, and classic, elegant, and refined, I love the purity in the red fruits here in nose, and on the palate. Produced from the highest percentage of Cabernet Sauvignon in the history of the estate, with just a bit of effort you find its aromatic wealth displaying cherries, blackberries, tobacco leaf, flowers, mint, espresso. and spices. The palate is vibrant, regal, slightly firm, crisp, and energetic. The finish delivers its red berries with their spicy edge, and delicate sprig of mint easily. The wine blends 98% Cabernet Sauvignon, and 2% Merlot. Drink from 2027-2060.

Almost entirely Cabernet, this wine is packed with aromatic black-currant fruits. It is impressively rich with solid tannins and black plum, walnut and berry flavors. Drink this powerful wine from 2028 at the earliest. — Roger Voss

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.

Still in barrel at the time of tasting (bottling due in August 2023), showing a seductive smoked cedar, soot and campfire chararater, layers of sculpted dark fruits, and rose petal aromatics, this is well structured, softens in the mid palate to reveal creamy blackberry and raspberry fruit, with savoury salted cracker. Unquestionably one of the wines to go to within a challenging vintage, really stands out. Harvest September 23 to October 11. 100% new oak. A tiny crop, below 20hl/h, which accounts for the high percentage of Cabernet. Emmanuel Bonneau technical director, Eric Boissenot consultant.

The 2021 Château Ducru-Beaucaillou is one of the top wines of the vintage. It’s based on 98% Cabernet Sauvignon and 2% Merlot, harvested from September 21 to October 10, that was vinified in wooden tronconique tanks and brought up all in new barrels. It has a deep ruby/plum hue to go with classic Ducru notes of pure crème de cassis, graphite, crushed stone, and violets, with a kiss of background tobacco and spicy oak. Medium to full-bodied, deep, rich, and concentrated, it has a beautiful mid-palate, ripe, building tannins, and a gorgeous finish. Checking in as 12.5% natural alcohol with a pH of 3.88, hats off to the genius of Bruno Borie and his team for producing a truly Grand Vin in this challenging vintage.

(WA 94-96 points) 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. - William Kelley

A blend of 98% Cabernet Sauvignon and 2% Merlot, the 2021 Ducru-Beaucaillou is deep garnet-purple in color. It leaps from the glass with bold notions of fresh blackcurrants, wild strawberries, lavender, and boysenberries, giving way to a pepper and spice-laced undercurrent. The light-bodied palate delivers impressive tension, with fine-grained tannins and vivacious black and red berry layers, finishing with a spicy kick. - Lisa Perrotti-Brown