2009 Ch. Beauséjour

The 2009 Beauséjour Héritiers Duffau-Lagarrosse has been eulogized elsewhere, but returning to this vintage after four years, it's a very good Saint-Émilion rather than a great one. It has a typically ripe and exotic bouquet with a heavy carapace of new oak that doesn't feel completely welded to the fruit. Certainly, there is immense concentration, which will appeal if that's your metric. The palate is intense and structured with layered black fruit, high-toned but lacking complexity. It has a hedonistic allure, and there is a fine grip, notwithstanding that it develops more nuance in the glass. Maybe give it another four to five years? Tasted at the Lia's Wings/book dinner at Medlar restaurant.

The 2009 Beauséjour Duffau-Lagarrosse has a very composed and focused bouquet with brambly red fruit, mulberry, loam and cedar aromas, maybe just a little new oak still waiting to be fully subsumed after 10 years. The palate is well balanced with a medicinal, honey textured opening, plenty of cough candy infusing the red fruit, good depth but just missing some grip and density on the rather one-dimensional finish. This has not aged as well as some of the others from Nicolas Thienpont's stable, such as Larcis Ducasse and this is one example where I prefer the preceding vintage. Tasted blind at Farr Vintners’ 2009 Bordeaux tasting.