Region | |
---|---|
Subregion | France > Bordeaux > Right Bank > St Emilion |
Colour | Red |
Type | Still |
This 20 hectare vineyard is well situated in the heart of Saint Emilion and is planted with 80% Merlot, 16% Cabernet Franc and 4% Cabernet Sauvignon.
Extremely aromatic and lifted on the nose with wild fruit and flowers, as well as chalk and mushroom undertones. Full body and ultra-fine tannins with beautiful grace and balance. Shows structure yet refinement at the same time. Needs four to five years to come completely together, but already so beautiful. Drink after 2023.
Showing spectacularly well on the two occasions I was able to taste it, the 2016 Château Beau-Séjour Bécot is a blend of 80% Merlot, 15% Cabernet Franc, and 5% Cabernet Sauvignon, aged 16 months in 90% new oak, and hitting a healthy 14.5% natural alcohol. This straight-up classy, seamless, ultra-fine Saint Emilion offers a beautiful bouquet of red currants, white truffles, spice, and flowers. With brilliant limestone character, fabulous intensity on both the nose and palate, ultra-fine tannins, and a magical texture, it’s approachable today yet has another 20+ years of prime drinking. 2019 - 2039.
Medium to deep garnet-purple colored, the 2016 Beau-Sejour Becot (80% Merlot, 15% Cabernet Franc and 5% Cabernet Sauvignon) is just a little closed to begin, opening out to reveal beautiful chocolate-covered cherries, preserved plums and black raspberries scents with touches of stewed tea, tobacco, red roses and cinnamon stick. Full-bodied and jam-packed with perfumed fruit layers, it has a rock-solid frame of ripe, finely grained tannins and layer upon layer of provocative black fruit and savory layers on the finish. 2020 - 2037
Right on the limestone plateau, this has a lovely delivery of extremely ripe black fruits dotted through with minerality and little pulses of electricity. Extremely successful, this will age well thanks to elongated tannins that are chalky in all the right places. Again, we have this slight austerity on the finish, a reminder than 2016 is not the right bank party we saw in 2015, but this is excellent with such a beautiful balance.
Drinking Window 2027 - 2050
Deep crimson. Smooth and ripe. No rough edges. Until a sort of dry Marmite finish (love it or hate it). Cool, light end. Rather a lack of fruit intensity on the mid palate.
Drink 2023-2035
The nose is firm and fresh the start of the palate has a mix of red fruits and bramble. Sweeter and richer in the middle the fruit is ripe then fresh black fruits give a lighter feel firm on the finish. 2025-35
One of the later picked wines in St Emilion in 2016 (on October 15th), this is a correspondingly ripe, even heady, wine with rich bramble and blackberry fruit, hints of tangerine and ground spices and the chalkiness of the best wines from the plateau. 2024-31
The 2016 Beau-Sejour-Becot is a blend of 80% Merlot, 15% Cabernet Franc and 5% Cabernet Sauvignon cropped at 40 hectoliters per hectare, picked between 3-20 October. It has a very pure and precise bouquet, pure with joyful black cherries, blackcurrants, cedar and incense that is beautifully defined. The palate is medium-bodied with supple tannin, very well balanced, sensual and lively with a gentle, caressing finish of cedar and tobacco. There is good structure here, a Saint Emilion that should age with style. This continues the upswing of Beau-Sejour-Becot.
Drink Date 2022 - 2045
This is really beautiful in 2016 showing blackberry, blueberry and walnut character. Full-bodied, tight and focussed with fantastic length. Serious. Best ever modern vintage?