Château Beychevelle, 4ème Cru Classé, St Julien, 2020
Philippe Blanc says the “Fruit is very dominant with nice dark cherry and black fruit, but the tannin structure is big and very accessible”. Compact and rather closed aromatically, hints of black cherry, graphite, and summer flowers emerge reluctantly. The palate is so alive with bright purple fruit, sweet, precise and very vibrant, there’s a wonderful intensity and gorgeous fine-grained texture to the fruit. Pure, long and very focussed. Ripe raspberry intersperced with minerals and cassis; there is less sweetness than in recent years, almost a touch of dry stoniness about it. There’s a lovely florality beginning to come through. An excellent, detailed Beychevelle with more precision and and energy than in some years.
critic reviews
The 2020 Beychevelle has an open-knit, very well-defined bouquet with pure black cherries, bilberry, veins of blueberry and crushed violet. There's just a touch of new oak still waiting to be assimilated. The palate is lavish and very ripe, displaying black fruit tinged with notes of fig and date, turning almost exotic toward the lascivious finish. Perhaps, for Beychevelle, this is modern in style. It's a world away from the slightly herbal showing in barrel, but bottle age ought to temper its hedonistic urges. Tasted blind at the annual Southwold tasting.
Brambled fruit, muscular but nicely integrated tannic architecture, cocoa bean and blackberry, well put together, skilful and enjoyable, cassis and cloves, grilled toast and sandalwood. Suggest giving the traditional ten years in bottle before opening, and should stay on the plateau for another few decades after that. Harvest September 14 to 29, 47hl/h yield, 60% new oak for ageing.
Rich and muscular, the 2020 Beychevelle offers up aromas of cassis, blackberries and baked plums mingled with notions of spices, pencil shavings and toasty new oak. Medium to full-bodied, thick and fleshy, with an ample core of fruit framed by powdery, generously extracted tannins that assert themselves on the finish, this is a more powerful, chunky Beychevelle than the suave 2019.
Deep garnet-purple colored, the 2020 Beychevelle leaps with vibrant notes of crushed blackcurrants, juicy black plums, and black raspberries with fragrant hints of pencil shavings, dried roses, and aniseed. Medium-bodied, the palate is refined and elegant with bright acidity and fine-grained tannins, finishing long and earthy.