Wine Advisor
Beaulieu Vineyard, BV Georges de Latour Private Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 2015
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Description
Tasting notes
Reviewed by: Lisa Perrotti-Brown
A blend of 90% Cabernet Sauvignon, 3% Petit Verdot, 3% Malbec and 4% Merlot, the 2015 Cabernet Sauvignon Private Reserve Georges de Latour was aged for 22 months in French oak barrels, 90% new. Deep garnet-purple colored, it offers a profound nose of baked blackberries, Black Forest cake, Christmas pudding and Chinese five spice with hints of rose hip tea, cedar chest and mincemeat pie. Full-bodied, super rich and wonderfully concentrated, the palate provides a rock-solid frame of grainy tannins, finishing long and spicy. At 15% alcohol, it is a beautifully rich, ripe, opulent expression with bags of compelling freshness to offset all that decadence.
Reviewed by: Antonio Galloni
The 2015 Cabernet Sauvignon Georges de Latour Private Reserve expresses all of the richness of the year while also retaining a terrific sense of energy and vertical lift for such a big wine. Floral notes add aromatic intensity to a core of red cherry jam, pomegranate, blood orange, mint and sweet spice notes. Racy and unctuous to the core, the 2015 has a lot to offer.
Reviewed by: Stephen Tanzer
Bright, full medium ruby. Reticent nose currently dominated by aromas of dark chocolate, rum raisin, spices, licorice and graphite minerality, with its dark fruits in the deep background at present. Densely packed and hugely concentrated owing to the low crop level of 2015, but already displaying compelling sweetness. This is quite inexpressive, flavor-wise, in the middle palate but already boasts a three-dimensional texture and outstanding depth. This extremely youthful wine boasts a compellingly long, echoing finish featuring ripe, building tannins--more obvious than those of the 2016 today--and a brooding medicinal note of dark chocolate. This, too, is an infant today. Production of the Georges de Latour has been lower in recent years than previously, with this vintage the lowest of all at just 6,200 cases. (15% alcohol; 3.62 pH; 6.1 g/l acidity; aged for 22 months in 90% new French oak)
About the Producer
Beaulieu Vineyard is a beautiful story about a beautiful vineyard. To surprise their dear wife, Georges and Fernande de Latour bought a four-hectare plot of vines and a house called Rutherford in the Napa Valley in the United States in May 1900, and a new era began. When Madame Fernande first saw the land, she exclaimed "Quel Beaulieu", a French phrase meaning "a beautiful piece of land", and that was the name of the winery. This was a very sound investment on the part of the De Latour family. In fact, soon after buying the property, the vines were attacked by aphids, and it was thanks to Mr. Georges' planting knowledge that the aphid-infested vines were cured and within ten years a million vines with aphid-resistant roots were produced, rejuvenating the winemaking business in the Napa Valley. Mr. Georges became a well-known and most influential figure in the region. In 1940, BV also provided the wines required for the White House banquet, which was praised by celebrities such as Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of President Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill, the British Prime Minister.
