Vertical Tasting: Château Beaumont 2016-2019

£79.00
A vertical tasting (four different vintages of the same wine) of a well-known Cabernet dominated Bordeaux. Taste for yourself how different growing conditions, and time in the bottle, affect a wine's flavour and mouthfeel. Limited edition, 24 packs only.

Tasting notes
Full of fruit with subtle oak flavours they are perfect for meat dishes, caramelized root vegetables and hard cheeses.

Why we recommend these wines
Château Beaumont has long been one of our favourite, reasonably priced Bordeaux wines; a great representative of what it is.

The wines
The wine is a blend of the Cabernet Sauvignon which gives the wine its structure, Merlot which gives its smoothness and Petit Verdot provides the sparkle. The proportions of the blend vary by vintage depending on how the different varietals turned out.

2016 and 2019 are top rated vintages, the Wine Society rating them 10/10 with 2018 rated 9/10 and 2017 a middling 7/10.

Below are extracts the Château’s notes about each vintage
2016 had exceptionally good weather conditions and they were able to harvest extremely healthy and excellent quality fruits.
Château Beaumont 2016 has deep intensity and very dark colour with purple hints. The nose is very open and complex with smooth oak aromas and notes of ripe fruits. On the palate, the attack is silky and fresh. The tannins evolution is very nice giving a full bodied wine with a round feel. The fruity aromas along with some light oaky notes are very elegant and increase the beautiful aromatic length of the wine.

2017 had terrible frosts in late April and hey lost of 50% of the crop. The weather was temperate for the rest of the growing season. This enabled them to harvest perfectly ripe grapes.
Château Beaumont 2017 merlots display ripe fruits have a very ripe fruit and fleshy and smooth tannins. The Cabernet Sauvignons are powerful and have a good length. The Petit Verdots are very fruity and have a nice liveliness.

2018 was the only vintage of the four where Merlot was the dominant varietal. The quality of the crop was beautiful. The hot summer gave the berries a very concentrated amount of colouring matter and tanins as well as giving lower yields because of an important hydric loss.
Château Beaumont 2018 has a very generous and complex nose, very harmonious, concentrated and with a great freshness with silky tanins. Merlots are very ripe with fleshy and silky tanins. Cabernets Sauvignon are powerful with a long finish. Petit Verdots have a beautiful acidity and a lot of freshness.

2019 had a mild and rainy winter during 2018-2019 which allowed the buildup of precious groundwater reserves. The summer of 2019 will be remembered as one of the hottest and driest summers since 1900. It offered ideal weather conditions for a homogeneous veraison (change of color of the grape berries). As a result, the harvested grapes were well-balanced and concentrated.
Château Beaumont 2019 is characterised by roundness, harmony and fruitiness. The merlots give a lovely fruitiness and some sweetness, while the cabernets sauvignons bring concentration and the petits verdots a spicy touch.

Although none of the vintages are bad, one wonders how one can distinguish between them from these descriptions. The only solution is to taste them for yourself; you don't have to be a wine expert only know what you like!

The wine estate
Located on the left bank of the Gironde, between the communes of Margaux and Saint-Julien, Château Beaumont draws its finesse and its delicacy from 113 ha in a single block of deep gravels which are some of the best soils of the Haut-Médoc.
Château Beaumont has opted for integrated viticulture, following the technical specifications of Terra Vitis®, aiming to produce quality grapes with the greatest respect for the environment. It is owned by the same business group who own Châteaux Beychevelle and Lagrange – Socétié Grands Millésimes de France.
chateau-beaumont.com

Food and wine
With rich fruit and good tannins it is the ideal match for rich grilled or roast meats , hearty stews, roast vegetables and strong, hard cheeses.
Refer also to our food and wine pairing guide, click here.

Did you know?
There is a lot of debate about the order in which to do a vertical. Some (not only us) prefer young to old, others old to young and yet others base the order on the expected changes in the flavour profile. If the tasting is commercially driven it will inevitably end with what the organiser thinks is the best wine.