2014 Beausejour Duffau-Lagarosse

So layered with a lovely richness of chocolate, wet earth and spices, not to mention plum character. Full-bodied, tight and focused. Needs five to six years to open, but it’s a structured and beautiful wine already. Feb 2017, www.jamessuckling.com

An utterly spellbinding wine, the 2014 Beauséjour Héritiers Duffau-Lagarrosse is also one of the unqualified successes of the vintage. Beams of tannin give the 2014 its ample, broad feel. Inky red cherry, blueberry, smoke, leather and tobacco fill out the wine's big frame effortlessly. Layers of intense fruit meld into a huge spine of tannin in a vertical, massively structured Saint-Émilion. So many 2014s are charming and accessible, but this is not one of them. Readers will have to be patient. Feb 2017, www.vinous.com, Drink: 2024-2044

The 2014 Beausejour (Duffau Lagarrosse) was an intriguing and quite mercurial Saint Emilion when I tasted it from barrel. Now in bottle, it has developed a quite compelling bouquet, very pure with black cherries, iodine, potpourri and crushed violets. The intensity is very impressive. The palate is medium-bodied with almost rigid tannin. This is a masculine wine, perhaps one that has closed down after bottle since it was so expressive from barrel. It is much more linear than I was expecting, even with a touch of hardness on the finish. It is a rather enigmatic Saint Emilion, one tricky to pin down at the moment. Hopefully more flesh will surface with bottle age and just balance out that strict finish. Let's see where this will go. Certainly I would not broach this for a few years. Mar 2017, www.robertparker.com