2022, Château Langoa Barton, SAINT-JULIEN, 3ème Grand Cru Classé

Bordeaux Blend: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc.

Léoville Barton's smaller sister 3rd growth chateau has been producing increasingly excellent wines in recent vintages. Grape varieties, viticulture and vinification are similar to those of Léoville. Quality is often very similar too.

The 2022 Langoa Barton is vibrant and focused, as the best wines are in this vintage. Crushed raspberry, blood orange, mint, spice and rose petal are all beautifully delineated. There's a purity to the 2022 that is impossible to miss. I admire its precision and lovely minerality. Langoa could turn out to be one of the Sleepers of 2022, especially among the more affordable wines of the Left Bank. 91-93 Antonio Galloni, Vinous. 

The first vintage produced in the estate's new winery, which more than doubled the number of vats, permitting sub-plot by sub-plot vinification, the brilliant 2022 Langoa Barton offers up aromas of dark berries, cassis, violets and cigar wrapper, followed by a medium to full-bodied, deep and fleshy palate endowed with terrific depth and tension. Polished and penetrating, it should match or even surpass the 2019 and 2016 vintages, and it is sure to be one of the more intelligent purchases of the en primeur campaign. 93-95 William Kelley, Wine Advocate.

Deep fruit, dark spices and graphite with wide yet polished, linear tannins. Full-bodied and intense with depth and structure. Long and chalky at the end. Big wine. 96-97 James Suckling.

Another successful vintage for Langoa, with dense cherry pit, graphite, smoked earth and bilberry fruits. Glass-staining ruby colour, a little atypical for the estate with its gourmet edge that gives supple tannins and a rich mid-palate, with concentrated fruit and spices all balanced by great tannic architecture. This is an impressive St Julien from the Barton family, with a ton of ageing potential. 94 Jane Anson, Decanter.

Drinking Window: 2028 - 2042