2018 Château Beau-Séjour Bécot, St Emilion, Bordeaux

2018 Château Beau-Séjour Bécot, St Emilion, Bordeaux

Product: 20188109815
Prices start from £223.00 per case Buying options
2018 Château Beau-Séjour Bécot, St Emilion, Bordeaux

Buying options

Available by the case In Bond. Pricing excludes duty and VAT, which must be paid separately before delivery. Storage charges apply.
Case format
Availability
Price per case
12 x 75cl bottle
BBX marketplace BBX 1 case £550.00
New To BBX
New To BBX
6 x 75cl bottle
BBX marketplace BBX 1 case £223.00
New To BBX
New To BBX
BBX marketplace BBX 1 case £223.00
BBX marketplace BBX 1 case £235.00
BBX marketplace BBX 1 case £245.00
BBX marketplace BBX 1 case £259.00
BBX marketplace BBX 1 case £268.00
BBX marketplace BBX 1 case £310.00
See more listings+
See more listings
3 x 150cl magnum
BBX marketplace BBX 3 cases £275.00
New To BBX
New To BBX
You can place a bid for this wine on BBX

Description

Beau-Séjour Bécot (the “little kiss”) is a 22-hectare single plot, all on limestone. Run by her father Gérard and uncle Dominique for 35 years, with Michel Rolland as a friendly advisor, Juliette Bécot and husband Julien are starting with a lighter touch in the vineyard and cellar. The energy in the wine is a delight, giving the plummy Merlot bounce and immediacy. Drink 2025-2038.

Blend: 70% Merlot, 25% Cabernet Franc, 5% Cabernet Sauvignon

wine at a glance

Delivery and quality guarantee

Critics reviews

Wine Advocate95-97/100
The 2018 Beau-Sejour Becot is composed of 80% Merlot, 15% Cabernet Franc and 5% Cabernet Sauvignon. The Merlot was harvested on September 12-25, and the Cabernet varieties were harvested on October 4, 5 and 10. Yields were 46 hectoliters per hectare, and it is anticipated that the wine will age for 16 months. Sixty-five percent of the wine will be matured in new barriques, while 35% will be aged in vats, amphorae and large oak casks of 20-hectoliter capacity. Deep garnet-purple colored, it leaps from the glass with bold, expressive notions of stewed plums, blackberry pie and Black Forest cake with nuances of menthol, mocha, molten licorice and wild sage plus a waft of lavender. Full-bodied, the palate is laden with latent energy, offering slow-releasing glimpses at dark, seductive berry preserves layers and vibrant earthy accents, framed by firm, grainy tannins and seamless freshness, finishing long and mineral laced.
Lisa Perrotti-Brown - 23/04/2019 Read more

About this WINE

Château Beau-Séjour Bécot

Château Beau-Séjour Bécot

Château Beau-Séjour Bécot has experienced some dramatic ups and downs in recent decades: it was classified a Premier Grand Cru Classé B in 1955, demoted in 1986 and promoted once again, as a Premier Grand Cru Classé B, in 1996.

The terroir is outstanding, most of it atop the limestone plateau. Juliette Bécot and husband Julien Barthe represent the third generation of Juliette’s family here, along with her cousins Pierre and Caroline Bécot. Not so long ago, the wines were turbo-charged and Parker-friendly, ripe with lots of new oak and extraction. Under Juliette and Julien’s guidance, there has been a major turnaround stylistically. Thomas Duclos consults here, having taken over from Michel Rolland.

Find out more
St Émilion

St Émilion

St Émilion is one of Bordeaux's largest producing appellations, producing more wine than Listrac, Moulis, St Estèphe, Pauillac, St Julien and Margaux put together. St Emilion has been producing wine for longer than the Médoc but its lack of accessibility to Bordeaux's port and market-restricted exports to mainland Europe meant the region initially did not enjoy the commercial success that funded the great châteaux of the Left Bank. 

St Émilion itself is the prettiest of Bordeaux's wine towns, perched on top of the steep limestone slopes upon which many of the region's finest vineyards are situated. However, more than half of the appellation's vineyards lie on the plain between the town and the Dordogne River on sandy, alluvial soils with a sprinkling of gravel. 

Further diversity is added by a small, complex gravel bed to the north-east of the region on the border with Pomerol.  Atypically for St Émilion, this allows Cabernet Franc and, to a lesser extent, Cabernet Sauvignon to prosper and defines the personality of the great wines such as Ch. Cheval Blanc.  

In the early 1990s there was an explosion of experimentation and evolution, leading to the rise of the garagistes, producers of deeply-concentrated wines made in very small quantities and offered at high prices.  The appellation is also surrounded by four satellite appellations, Montagne, Lussac, Puisseguin and St. Georges, which enjoy a family similarity but not the complexity of the best wines.

St Émilion was first officially classified in 1954, and is the most meritocratic classification system in Bordeaux, as it is regularly amended. The most recent revision of the classification was in 2012

Find out more
Merlot

Merlot

The most widely planted grape in Bordeaux and a grape that has been on a relentless expansion drive throughout the world in the last decade. Merlot is adaptable to most soils and is relatively simple to cultivate. It is a vigorous naturally high yielding grape that requires savage pruning - over-cropped Merlot-based wines are dilute and bland. It is also vital to pick at optimum ripeness as Merlot can quickly lose its varietal characteristics if harvested overripe.

In St.Emilion and Pomerol it withstands the moist clay rich soils far better than Cabernet grapes, and at it best produces opulently rich, plummy clarets with succulent fruitcake-like nuances. Le Pin, Pétrus and Clinet are examples of hedonistically rich Merlot wines at their very best. It also plays a key supporting role in filling out the middle palate of the Cabernet-dominated wines of the Médoc and Graves.

Merlot is now grown in virtually all wine growing countries and is particularly successful in California, Chile and Northern Italy.

Find out more

When is a wine ready to drink?

We provide drinking windows for all our wines. Alongside the drinking windows there is a bottle icon and a maturity stage. Bear in mind that the best time to drink a wine does also depend on your taste.

Not ready

These wines are very young. Whilst they're likely to have lots of intense flavours, their acidity or tannins may make them feel austere. Although it isn't "wrong" to drink these wines now, you are likely to miss out on a lot of complexity by not waiting for them to mature.

Ready - youthful

These wines are likely to have plenty of fruit flavours still and, for red wines, the tannins may well be quite noticeable. For those who prefer younger, fruitier wines, or if serving alongside a robust meal, these will be very enjoyable. If you choose to hold onto these wines, the fruit flavours will evolve into more savoury complexity.

Ready - at best

These wines are likely to have a beautiful balance of fruit, spice and savoury flavours. The acidity and tannins will have softened somewhat, and the wines will show plenty of complexity. For many, this is seen as the ideal time to drink and enjoy these wines. If you choose to hold onto these wines, they will become more savoury but not necessarily more complex.

Ready - mature

These wines are likely to have plenty of complexity, but the fruit flavours will have been almost completely replaced by savoury and spice notes. These wines may have a beautiful texture at this stage of maturity. There is lots to enjoy when drinking wines at this stage. Most of these wines will hold in this window for a few years, though at the very end of this drinking window, wines start to lose complexity and decline.