2006 Château Léoville Barton, St Julien, Bordeaux

2006 Château Léoville Barton, St Julien, Bordeaux

Product: 20061012361
Prices start from £715.00 per case Buying options
2006 Château Léoville Barton, St Julien, Bordeaux

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Available by the case In Bond. Pricing excludes duty and VAT, which must be paid separately before delivery. Storage charges apply.
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12 x 75cl bottle
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Description

A huge wine. The stunningly complex and perfumed nose has a aromas of pure berry fruit, mocha, spice and reviving minerality, combined with the richness evident in the Langoa. The palate is at the same time exuberantly rich and enticing as well as being demurely delicate and fresh with an astoundingly long length. The great structure implies that this will require some patience. This is a superbly sexy Leoville Barton that has a certain "wow" factor and is a cellar must-have.
Fine Wine Team, Oct 2008

This is a powerful brooding Léoville-Barton. As classy as ever, it has lots of everything - fruit, tannins and acidity - all in perfect balance. There is an exciting mineral tension to the taut, concentrated wild blackberry and cedar flavours, reflecting both the elegant, classic character of 2006 as well as St Julien's inimitable style. Another very good result for the Barton clan.
(Simon Staples, Fine Wine Director, June 2007

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Critics reviews

Wine Advocate92/100
Tasted at Bordeaux Index's annual 10-Year On tasting in London. The 2006 Chteau Loville-Barton has a surprisingly rich and opulent bouquet at first, although it calms down with aeration, offering crushed violet and black cherry scents, reminiscent of a fine Margaux. The palate is medium-bodied with a gentle grip in the mouth. Here the class begins to appear with fine balance and poise, but like the Langoa, it lacquers the mouth with tannins and feels very backward, surprising given the vintage. Cellar this for another decade, folks. Tasted January 2016.
Neal Martin - 30/05/2016 Read more
Robert Parker91/100
Not surprisingly, this wine is closed, masculine, but super-rich, with a denser, more complete and full-bodied style than its sibling, Langoa Barton. Some toasty vanillin is apparent in the black currant aromas intermixed with tobacco leaf, cedar, and spice box. The wine is full-bodied and has a boatload of tannin, not unusual for this estate, as well as an impressively pure, long finish. Everything is here, but this wine, made with uncompromising vision, is meant to be cellared for an exceptionally long period of time.
Robert Parker - Wine Advocate - Feb-2009
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Decanter
Complex, dark spice, charred new oak, chocolate and leafy cassis bouquet. Sleek and integrated with rich tannin, milk chocolate and tobacco. Classic. Really enjoyable.
Decanter Panel Tasting, July 2011 85% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Merlot.
A return to a more classic profile, with silky, dark damson and cassis, more structured tannins and great persistence. A lovely, extremely accomplished 2006, although it is still quite closed and backward right now. 
Drink 2017-2040. 
Jane Anson, Decanter. 1st September 2017 Read more

About this WINE

Chateau Leoville Barton

Chateau Leoville Barton

Château Léoville Barton is the smallest portion of the great Léoville estate and has been owned by the Barton family since 1826. There is no château and the wine is made at Langoa Barton.

Léoville Barton's 48 hectares of vineyards are located in the east of the St-Julien wine appellation and lie on gravelly-clay soils. They are planted with Cabernet Sauvignon 72%, Merlot 20%, Cabernet Franc 8%. The wine is matured in oak barriques (50% new) for 18 months.

Eighth and ninth-generation family members Lilian and Damien Barton took over the reins here in 2022, after the death of Anthony Barton. Anthony was responsible for the quality at Léoville Barton soaring; his tenure saw the wine changing from a solid, mid-performing 2ème Cru Classé to one of the most exciting and scintillating wines in St. Julien. Under Lilian and Damien’s care, business at the château is better than ever.

Léoville Barton is tannic and austere in youth but with time develops the classic cedary character that is the hallmark of St. Julien, along with intensely pure blackcurrant and cassis fruit notes. Léoville Barton's wines are made for extended cellaring and tend to show at their best with 10-15 years of bottle ageing.

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St Julien

St Julien

St Julien is the smallest of the "Big Four" Médoc communes. Although, without any First Growths, St Julien is recognised to be the most consistent of the main communes, with several châteaux turning out impressive wines year after year. 

St Julien itself is much more of a village than Pauillac and almost all of the notable properties lie to its south. Its most northerly château is Ch. Léoville Las Cases (whose vineyards actually adjoin those of Latour in Pauillac) but,  further south, suitable vineyard land gives way to arable farming and livestock until the Margaux appellation is reached.  

The soil is gravelly and finer than that of Pauillac, and without the iron content which gives Pauillac its stature. The homogeneous soils in the vineyards (which extend over a relatively small area of just over 700 hectares) give the commune a unified character.

The wines can be assessed as much by texture as flavour, and there is a sleek, wholesome character to the best. Elegance, harmony and perfect balance and weight, with hints of cassis and cedar, are what epitomise classic St Julien wines. At their very best they combine Margaux’s elegance and refinement with Pauillac’s power and substance.

Ch. Léoville Las Cases produces arguably the most sought-after St Julien, and in any reassessment of the 1855 Classification it would almost certainly warrant being elevated to First Growth status.

Recommended Châteaux: Ch. Léoville Las CasesCh.Léoville Barton, Ch Léoville Poyferré, Ch. Ducru-Beaucaillou, Ch Langoa Barton, Ch Gruaud Larose, Ch. Branaire-Ducru, Ch. Beychevelle

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Cabernet Sauvignon Blend

Cabernet Sauvignon Blend

Cabernet Sauvignon lends itself particularly well in blends with Merlot. This is actually the archetypal Bordeaux blend, though in different proportions in the sub-regions and sometimes topped up with Cabernet Franc, Malbec, and Petit Verdot.

In the Médoc and Graves the percentage of Cabernet Sauvignon in the blend can range from 95% (Mouton-Rothschild) to as low as 40%. It is particularly suited to the dry, warm, free- draining, gravel-rich soils and is responsible for the redolent cassis characteristics as well as the depth of colour, tannic structure and pronounced acidity of Médoc wines. However 100% Cabernet Sauvignon wines can be slightly hollow-tasting in the middle palate and Merlot with its generous, fleshy fruit flavours acts as a perfect foil by filling in this cavity.

In St-Emilion and Pomerol, the blends are Merlot dominated as Cabernet Sauvignon can struggle to ripen there - when it is included, it adds structure and body to the wine. Sassicaia is the most famous Bordeaux blend in Italy and has spawned many imitations, whereby the blend is now firmly established in the New World and particularly in California and  Australia.

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