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Château Ducru-Beaucaillou 2004

While I have been rushing around tasting and writing up my notes on the 2025 Bordeaux vintage, a few older bottles from a number of the châteaux I visited have been patiently waiting for me to get around to pulling the cork.

And so this weekend my hand came to rest on the next in line, a 2004 Château Ducru-Beaucaillou, yet one more in a sequence of wines from the 2004 vintage that have been drip-fed onto these pages in recent months. The 2004 Château Léoville-Poyferré popped its head above the parapet back in February, while the Château Léoville-Barton from the same vintage is still working its way to the front of the queue. Then there was the 2004 Calon-Ségur, 2004 Montrose, 2004 Pontet-Canet, 2004 Quinault L’Enclos and 2004 Vieux Château Certan.

If I keep going long enough, fingers crossed, I might eventually get on to the 2005 vintage.

Strangely, Ducru-Beaucaillou has never popped up as a Weekend Wine choice before, so a few words on its origin and history are perhaps warranted. Its story begins in the 17th century when it was part of the estate of Jean Louis de Nogaret, a figure of huge significance to the region as it was he who arranged for the Dutch engineer Jan Leegwater to construct the Médoc peninsula’s drainage system. It was carved out from this larger whole in 1661 when the estate was broken up and sold off. The new property took on the name Beaucaillou, a description of its pebbly soils; the Ducru part came later, when it was acquired by Bertrand Ducru in 1795.

Chateau Leoville-Poyferre 2004

The estate passed through many hands during the years that followed, including those of the Scottish merchant Nathaniel Johnston. His descendants held on to the estate until 1929 when it was sold. Just a few years later it was acquired by the Borie family, responsibility for the running of the estate falling to François Borie. Passing down through the family, it came to the current proprietor, Bruno Borie.

Of course, this is a fairly simple and curtailed history of the estate – for six pages of detailed historical information and tasting notes on its wines, see my Château Ducru-Beaucaillou profile.

Much has been done to improve the wines here during the past four decades. There were some difficulties with Brettanomyces during the 1980s and early 1990s, but investment in new cellars put this to an end. A new second wine was also introduced. The property has now been turning out top-notch wines worthy of their second-growth status for at least thirty years. Even so, there has been no let up in investment, and Bruno has overseen the construction of a huge new gravity-fed vinification facility with new vats of sizes tailored to the vineyard, and he maintains an ongoing research and development programme.

Much of my experience with Ducru-Beaucaillou dates to these past thirty years, from the 1995 vintage – which has always given pleasure – onwards, although I have encountered a handful of older vintages. Fortunately for me, they did not show any of the Bretty issues that some said plagued the wines during this era. The 1988 showed very well indeed in a small horizontal tasting of that vintage back in May 2000, a date which makes that one of the oldest tasting notes in existence on this site. The 1983 vintage has also equipped itself well, showing particularly well in 2023 when it popped up in my Bordeaux Threes report, at forty years of age.

As for the 2004 Château Ducru-Beaucaillou, revisited at a mere 22 years of age, this still presents plenty of fresh pigment in the glass. It has a quite charming nose which really needs an hour or two in the decenter to open up, and as it does so it reveals lively pyrazine notes, with traces of green peppercorn, sage and bay, with savoury threads of juniper, currant and dried blackcurrant. It takes time to open out and shake this all down, but it does a good job in the end, the nose eventually dominated by layers of savoury currant, blackberry, liquorice and sage. This comes across in equal measure on the palate, here supported by seams of powdery and tightly knit tannins, with little intertwined threads of black pepper. It feels delicious, dark, savoury but fresh, with a brooding backdrop of grip. A delightfully classic style, with a somewhat faded confidence since my last encounter, just a touch austere in the finish, and perhaps in need of a little more time to maybe develop a little more complexity? I think another five-plus years would benefit this, but you can pull the cork now if you need to scratch the itch. Just have a decanter ready, and a little time on your hands. The alcohol is 13% on the label. 93/100 (25/5/26)

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