Château Langoa Barton, 3ème Cru Classé, St Julien, 2023
The new winery at Langoa Barton has made an immediate impact. Greater precision during vinifications has resulted in a more pixelated, elegant, fine-grained style. It still has all the guts we'd expect with a deep core of cool berries and crunchy purple fruit mingling with hints of earth and graphite, but there's much better definition both aromatically, on the mid-palate and on the resonant tannins. A really fragrant and sophisticated Langoa.
critic reviews
The 2023 Langoa Barton has a clean, well-defined, almost understated bouquet with blackberry, black plum and raspberry fruit, quite open and expressive. The palate is medium-bodied with finely wound tannins, graceful with ample weight on the mid-palate. No fireworks nor ostentation, lightly spiced with a cohesive finish, this Langoa Barton will age gracefully in bottle.
Medium to deep garnet-purple in color, the 2023 Langoa Barton charges out of the glass with ready-to-go notes of crushed blackberries, raspberry leaves, and blackcurrant pastilles leading to nuances of pencil shavings and clove oil. The medium-bodied palate delivers compelling energy and freshness, with soft, approachable tannins and a zippy finish. The blend is 60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 37% Merlot, and 3% Cabernet Franc.
Solid tannins, gorgeous iris and violet reflections, blueberry and cassis fruits, shot through with cigar box, this is a fairly old school Langoa in the best possibly way, juicy, sapppy, nuanced, with chalky tannins that lift through the palate.
The 2023 Langoa Barton is a very accomplished wine, the family's new winery having permitted more precise, parcel-by-parcel winemaking as well as gentler handling of the fruit to deliver a wine with all this estate's customary intensity of flavor but more polish and refinement. Unwinding in the glass with aromas of dark berries, cassis and plums mingled with hints of pencil shavings and dried rose petals, it's medium to full-bodied, with an inky core of fruit, vibrant acids and plenty of suave structuring tannin. This classic blend of 60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 37% Merlot and 3% Cabernet Franc is sure to number among the intelligent purchases of the en primeur campaign.