2023 Château Langoa Barton, St Julien, Bordeaux

60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 37% Merlot and 3% Cabernet Franc. Cask sample.

Fresh and zesty with precise fruit and fine, integrated tannins. Some persistence on the finish. Balanced if understated.

Drink 2028 - 2040

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.

Drink 2028 - 2042

The 2023 Château Langoa Barton checks in as 60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 37% Merlot, and 3% Cabernet Franc that's resting in 60% new French oak. It hit 13% alcohol and has a deep purple hue as well as impressive notes of black cherries, darker currants, graphite, and spring flowers. It's balanced, medium-bodied, has bright acidity, and ripe, focusing tannins. It's clearly an outstanding wine, but it’s going to need time. Tasted twice with consistent notes.

The 2023 Langoa Barton is packed with dark red cherry, plum, spice, cedar and tobacco. Over the last few years, an updated style of vinification in a new cellar has yielded a bit more mid-palate sweetness, pliancy and resonance than in the past. It will be interesting to see where this goes, but clearly, we have entered into an era of Langoa. Tasted two times.

Drink 2027 - 2043

The 2023 Langoa Barton was picked from September 12 until October 2 at around 50hL/ha, with some "late" saignée for half the vat–when it has some “serious color,” according to Damien Barton. Two vats were chaptalized out of a total of 42, the highest at 15%, yielding an average alcohol of 13%.

Matured in 60% new oak, it has a very perfumed bouquet with black plum, boysenberry and a touch of mint. This is notably forward and unabashed. The palate is medium-bodied with pliant tannins, a sorbet-fresh Langoa with a bright, almost pastille-like finish that lingers in the mouth. Very seductive and vivacious, I appreciate the nascent energy here.

Drink 2028 - 2045

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.

There’s depth of fruit here with blackberries, blackcurrants and hints of cedar and tobacco. The tannins are very solid and polished with juiciness and depth. Pristine. Bright acidity. 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.

Drink 2030 - 2048