Château Léoville Barton, 2ème Cru Classé, St Julien, 2016
If Langoa is a nod to the future with its plush velvety style, the Leoville Barton honours the past. This is a Barton from yesteryear, which just might resemble a wine from Anthony's youth. There are cool menthol notes, dark hedgerow fruit, intense blackcurrants and minerals. This is strict and authentic with muscular tannins coated with black cherry and savoury meaty notes. This is a leviathan of a wine! A true Leoville Barton. 86% Cabernet Sauvignon and 14% Merlot.
critic reviews
The 2016 Léoville Barton has an outgoing nose with an unexpected touch of eucalyptus that tinctures the lively black fruit. The palate is medium-bodied with firm tannins. Nice backbone here, fresh and sapid, with a harmonious, almost briny finish that lends it so much personality. Excellent. Tasted at the 10-Year-On tasting at Bordeaux Index.
Austere but confident, firm muscular tannins, this needs a good few moments of opening before the softer side appears, with creamy blackberry fruits with spiced rosemary and cumin notes alongside cedar, mint leaf, coffee bean and licorice. This makes it slapbang in the middle of classic Leoville Barton territory, and this is one to get on board with. Delicious, understated, savoury, boom. 60% new oak.
The 2016 Leoville Barton is deep garnet-colored. It charges out of the gate with powerful notes of blackcurrant pastilles, stewed plums, and blueberry compote, followed by wafts of lilacs, dark chocolate, and licorice. Medium-bodied, the palate is built like a brick house with a solid wall of firm, grainy tannins and lovely tension supporting the taut, muscular black fruits, finishing long with fantastic purity of fruit.
A brilliant young wine, the 2016 Leoville Barton unwinds in the glass with aromas of cassis, dark berries and cigar box mingled with subtle hints of loamy soil. Medium to full-bodied, deep and concentrated, it's seamless and exquisitely balanced, with beautifully refined tannins, bright acids and a long, penetrating finish. Its structural refinement is such that it's far from forbidding to open right now, yet patience will be richly rewarded.