2023 Beau-Sejour Becot
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Tasting Notes
This Beau-Séjour Bécot is so wonderfully balanced, with layers of peppery spice and perfectly ripe blackberries that open up slowly in the glass. The mid-palate is equally complex, brimming with cassis, menthol and violets. The concentration and density of fruit is particularly impressive given the vintage. Their 2023 is as good as any in recent times – expressive and distinct. 14% alcohol. Blend: 77% Merlot, 21% Cabernet Franc, 2% Cabernet Sauvignon
Critic Scores
Average Score
James Suckling
William Kelley, Wine Advocate
More reviews and scores
The 2023 Château Beau-Séjour Bécot checks in as 77% Merlot and 23% Cabernet Franc, made all in the new facility and brought up in 54% new French oak, with the rest mostly in oak casks and a kiss in amphora. It has the vintage's bright, almost racy style in its notes of black raspberry, chalky minerality, and tobacco and floral aromatics, and it's medium-bodied on the palate, with juicy acidity, fine yet building tannins, and outstanding length. It's a beautiful, elegant yet structured wine that will age gracefully. Tasted twice with consistent notes.
The intensity, length, and purity are impossible to ignore this year. The wine offers strong floral characteristics coupled with sweet, ripe, red cherries, licorice, black raspberries, and a hint of cocoa. The wine is silky, elegant, long, and refined. The fruit is incredibly, soft, sweet, and pure. The key point in the vintage was their water-retentive, limestone terroir that nourished the vines during the dry part of the growing season. 2023 is the first vintage produced in the estates new cellars, which allowed for precision wine making, which was needed in this difficult vintage. The aging is different starting with the 2023 as well, now the wine is aged in 55% new, French oak barrels, with 20% of the harvest aging in foudres. The wine blends 77% Merlot, with 22% Cabernet Franc. 14.1%, ABV, 3.5 pH. The harvest took place, September 7 - October 4.
A blend of 77% Merlot, 21% Cabernet Franc, and 2% Cabernet Sauvignon, the 2023 Beau-Sejour Becot has a pH of 3.5. It is ageing in 55% new oak barriques, 20% one-year-old barrels, and 25% in a mix of amphorae and 20 hl oak casks. It has a deep garnet-purple color and comes galloping out of the glass with notes of crushed plums, black raspberries, and Morello cherries, opening out to a delicate undercurrent of garrigue, crushed rocks, violets, cranberry sauce, and pencil shavings. The medium-bodied palate is breathtakingly elegant and racy, with intense red and black berry layers and a fine-grained texture, finishing with energetic mineral sparks.
