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  • Country ranking ?

    1 497
  • Producer ranking ?

    29
  • Decanting time

    2h
  • When to drink

    2020-2035
  • Food Pairing

    Beef

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The Story

Ever since it was first produced, and down through the various vintages, Château Beychevelle has reflected the elegance and finesse of Saint Julien's finest terroirs.Graceful and complex, with a tremendous aromatic richness, Château Beychevelle is made from the best plots in the vineyard and undergoes a rigorous selection process.It reveals its character after about ten years, and can be kept for several decades, depending on the vintage.

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Wine Information

Château Beychevelle, A prestigious Cru Classé whose character has been forged by three centuries of history…
Nowhere does the word Château in its noblest sense ring as true as it does at Beychevelle.
The elegance of its classical architecture makes it a jewel in the crown of the Médoc, coveted since its creation by the powerful families who have successively marked the economic, political and cultural life of Bordeaux and the region.

Under Henri III, Beychevelle was the fief of the Dukes of Epernon, particularly the first of them:
Jean-Louis Nogaret de la Valette. This Admiral and Governor of Guyenne was all-powerful; according to legend, the boats that passed before his Château had to lower their sails as a sign of allegiance.Hence the name "Baisse-Voile" (lowering of sails),
which was to become Beychevelle, and the emblem of the Château, the ship with a prow in the shape of a griffin guarding Dionysus' cellar.

Built in the 17th century, reconstructed by the Marquis de Brassier in 1757 and extended by the Heine family
at the end of the 19th century, Château Beychevelle has recently been restored to its original splendour.
Classical in its lines, the imposing façade, topped with a majestic triangular pediment and with wings
on each side, is embellished with volutes and vases that give it an exuberantly baroque appearance.
Today owned by Grands Millésimes de France(Castel and Suntory Groups), Château Beychevelle offers
a unique setting for the organisation of prestigious events.

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Vintage 2012

The 2012 Bordeaux vintage report.

The 2012 Bordeaux vintage is a year for vineyard management and workers. Call it a winemakers vintage, or change your tune and call it vineyard managers vintage. Either descriptor works perfectly. Wineries with the financial capacity to take the necessary measures in the vineyards during the season, coupled with the willingness to severely downgrade unripe grapes, will produce the best wines. Even then, it will be a difficult vintage with small quantities of wine. From start to finish, the 2012 Bordeaux vegetative season and harvest were stressful for the winemakers, the vines and with the grapes being vinified, the winemakers.

 

The 2012 Bordeaux vintage did not get off to a good start. After a cold winter and a wet spring, the April rains soaked the Bordeaux wine region. After the April rains, there were outbreaks of mildew, which required spraying. The month of May was warmer than April. Things calmed down a bit in June. All this resulted in late and uneven flowering. This resulted in small clusters of berries that ripened at different times, lowering quantities and requiring serious work in the vines and intensive sorting at harvest.

 

Although a growing season is never over until it is, uneven flowering never bodes well. Late flowering pushed back the entire vintage by 2 to 3 weeks, depending on the château. Generally speaking, late harvests are not generally a harbinger of good things to come.

 

If everything that happened up to the end of June didn't offer what happened next offered additional challenges with the 2012 Bordeaux vintage. After an average July, Bordeaux experienced a heat wave torrid weather and drought in August and September which stressed the vines, particularly the young vines. At one point, temperatures soared to 42 degrees Celsius, or 107 degrees! Other days crossed 100 degrees. It was extremely hot and dry. The vines stopped and the vintage was on track to be even later than expected. Towards the end of September, things improved with the much-hoped-for combination of warm days, cool nights and desperately needed rain, which helped nourish the vines. The first few days of October offered reasonably warm temperatures during the day, coupled with cooler weather at night for growers with Merlot ready to pick.

 

In the Médoc, you had to hurry and wait. Tom Petty could have exploded with “Waiting is The Hardest Part” because producers had to wait because Cabernet Sauvignon had difficulty maturing. It was already October. Conventional wisdom says that at one point there was little to gain by waiting and more to lose, so the 2012 Bordeaux harvest began to take place. Some estates began picking young Merlot in late September, but most held back until around October 1, and a few producers waited a week or more. Most growers brought in all their fruit by mid-October.

 

Pomerol is usually the first appellation to harvest, due to their Merlot dominated vines. It is interesting to note that the picking took place simultaneously on the left bank on October 1st. Many properties in Pessac Léognan started their harvest before Pomerol. Château Haut Brion began work on their young Merlot vines on September 17th and Château Haut Bailly was not far behind, with a start date of September 27th. Most castles were in the thick of things on October 4, although Domaine de Chevalier waited until October 8.

 

While the pleasant, cooler weather was initially forecast to continue, on October 8 things changed quickly when massive amounts of rain fell across the entire Bordeaux region. With accompanying temperatures in the mid-60s and higher in some areas, winemakers were concerned about the potential for Botrytis, due to the humid tropical conditions. At this point, the fruit had to be picked, regardless of the state of ripeness. Like last year with the 2011 Bordeaux vintage, maturation was uneven. It wasn't just the bunches that weren't ripening, individual grapes in bunches reached varying degrees of ripeness, making sorting more important than ever. Optical sorting was used more than ever with the 2012 Bordeaux harvest.

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Latest Pro-tasting notes

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Written Notes

Deep colour. Intense black olive, meaty, vanilla aromas. Sweet cassis, licorice, black olive flavours, grippy dry tannins and underlying savoury nuances. Graphite dark chocolaty finish. 92 points

  • 92p

Ruby. Scented, some red berries, cassis, light floral note and some vanilla nose. Fresh acidity, ripe tannins, fresh, lively, leaner palate, elegant but may lack some substance, good length. 89

  • 89p
DRUVSAMMANSÄTTNING 50% Grand Vin; 46% CS, 44% M, 6% CF, 4% PV TASTINGNOTE Börjar med några mycket fina ektoner, inte superkoncentrerat med tanke på året, men med en underbart fin struktur och friska tanniner, är denna eleganta Cabernet skördad vid perfekt mognad, lång, harmonisk, men inte riktigt lika bra som det bästa av den andra toppcruerna i appellationen.
  • 91p
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Information

Origin

Saint-Julien, Bordeaux

Other wines from this producer

Amiral de Beychevelle

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