Château Beauséjour, Grand Cru Classé St Emilion, 2022

Name: Château Beauséjour, Grand Cru Classé St Emilion
Brand: Château Beauséjour
Price: 848.74 GBP

Available Vintages

all 2022

critic reviews

97/100Chris Kissack,The Wine Independent

The blend is 31% Cabernet Franc and 69% Merlot, which is the highest ever percentage of Cabernet Franc here. This exudes class on the nose, a mélange of lightly desiccated black cherry, currant, powdered chalk and violets with a touch of slate and graphite. The palate is similarly convincing, beginning in a polished, seamless, elegant style, with a core of blackcurrant, raspberry and red cherry fruits, wrapped in a tense limestone frame, with bright calcareous acidity giving it a great freshness. This has precision, elegance and energy in abundance, supported by a rich and tightly stretched frame of ripe tannins. It finishes firm and bright, and has great length too, filled out with those powdery tannins. This is a great result in this vintage, which is the first year Joséphine worked the whole vintage from pruning onwards, having arrived in April 2021. Tasted twice. The alcohol on the label is 14.5%.

DRINKING WINDOW 2030 - 2065

date of review 06/2025

100/100Jane Anson,Inside Bordeaux

A curl of woodsmoke and cedar aromatics, peony and crushed roses, fleshy black fruits, rose petals, love the switch between the texture of opulent silk and pumice stone tannic grip, this is exceptionally good. Josephine Duffau Lagrosse's first vintage from beginning to end. A low 3.4ph, reflecting the limestone soils, bottling two months later than usual because of new cellar construction, so 18 months in barrel, 70% new oak, rest in one year old oak. Axel Marchal and Julien Viaud consultants. A potential 100 points during En Primeur, living up to billing.

DRINKING WINDOW 2030 - 2050

date of review 03/2025

95-97/100Neal Martin,Vinous

The 2022 Beauséjour Héritiers Duffau-Lagarrosse was picked on 6-9 September for the Merlot and 23 for the Cabernet Franc, representing the highest percentage to date. It was cropped at 42hL/ha with 14.9% alcohol and a pH of 3.5. Aged in 68% new oak, it has a delicate nose that completely disguises that summer's warmth. Precise redcurrant and raspberry fruit aromas are laced with minerals. The limestone soils percolate and evince the estate's style under Joséphine Duffau Lagarrosse. It seems to deepen, to "stretch out" with aeration, manifesting more darker fruit. The palate is medium-bodied, mineral-driven and almost pastille-like in terms of purity with its mélange of red and blue fruit and granular texture. Background notes of tobacco and black truffle begin to surface with time. There's just a trace of white pepper on the finish. Precise, focused and with plenty of substance, this is a characterful and intellectually satisfying Duffau. Most importantly, not only will it be flippin' delicious, but you get the sense that Joséphine is only just getting started.

DRINKING WINDOW 2030 - 2065

date of review 05/2023

95-97/100William Kelley,Robert Parker Wine Advocate

The 2022 Beausejour (Duffau Lagarrosse) promises to be the finest wine that this superb limestone terroir has produced in at least several decades. In recent years, the quality of the site always shone through, but it was sometimes obscured by an impactful vinification and elevage (plenty of creamy new oak and malolactic fermentation in barrel). Much of the estate's Cabernet Franc was frequently eliminated from the blend. Josephine Duffau Lagarrosse has changed that, incorporating fully 31% Cabernet Franc in the blend to deliver a complex and compelling wine evocative of wild berries, plums, rose petals and violets. Medium to full-bodied, pure and vibrant, it's supple and layered, with beautifully refined tannins, terrific depth at the core and a long, chalky finish.

date of review 04/2023