2023 Chateau Beausejour Saint-Emilion Grand Cru
The 2023 Château Beauséjour, a Premier Grand Cru Classé, captures the soul of Saint-Émilion in its final vintage from the historic vat room. With 70% Merlot and 30% Cabernet Franc, it boasts a mosaic of clay-limestone terroir, offering deep, elegant notes of ripe fruit and subtle minerality. A true tribute to Beauséjour’s legacy.
Decanter
A stellar wine from this newly-named Château Beauséjour estate (removing the Héritiers Duffau-Lagarrosse). Herbal and dark fruit on the nose, blackcurrant with cocoa powder, liquorice, some exotic spices as well as purple floral notes, peonies and roses. Juicy supple and alive in the glass, this has lift and get-go from the start, super clean and precise with a lovely bite and grip to the tannins. Fine and chalky, mouthfilling, so you get the ample structure but keeps its direction and flow. Power is there for sure, which some 2023s don’t have, but this is also elegant and so precise. The flavour also really lingers. This has a vertical aspect, layered with muscle and fine sinew. Juicy and succulent, pure and moreish - really makes you want another sip and somehow feels approachable already. Balanced and delicious. Consultants Julien Viaud and Axel Marchal. 46hl/ha yield. 3.4pH. Ageing 14-16 months, 60% new oak. 70% grand vin.
Wine Advocate
Joséphine Duffau Lagarrosse's third vintage at this terrific hillside terroir is her most impressive to date. The 2023 Beauséjour (Duffau Lagarrosse) offers up aromas of black raspberries, mulberries, violets, spices and incense, followed by a medium to full-bodied, deep and layered palate that's seamless, suave and concentrated, with lively acids, beautiful purity of fruit and a long, mineral, gently balsamic finish. It's a blend of 70% Merlot and 30% Cabernet Franc, picked on nine days between September 13 and October 3. Duffau Lagarrosse's work on oak selection (she favors Burgundy's cooperage Cadus, among others) has delivered much more seamless integration at this early stage, and her attentive approach to extraction is already bearing fruit in the form of tannins that are more polished and refined than was formerly the case at this address. It's a brilliant effort from a property with almost limitless potential.