The 2016 La Croix Ducru-Beaucaillou Cuvee Colbert is a classic Saint-Julien with rich aromas of cassis, kirsch, and dark chocolate, balanced by subtle earth and licorice notes. Medium to full-bodied, it’s elegant and firm with ripe tannins and a long, mineral finish — drinking well now but built to age gracefully through 2036.

The Wine Advocate | RP 93
Published: Nov 30, 2018
Drink: 2020-2036

The 2016 La Croix Ducru-Beaucaillou Cuvee Colbert has a medium to deep garnet-purple color and nose of cassis, kirsch and dark chocolate with an undercurrent of licorice and earth. Medium to full-bodied, firm and grainy, the palate is elegant and pure, finishing long and minerally. 

Decanter | D 93
Published: Nov 16, 2024
Drink: 2024-2030

Matured with two-thirds new oak, the 2016 La Croix absolutely reflects the classical style of the vintage. Although oak is a little more on view than in the fruit-dominant 2018, the overall affect here is of great purity and subtlety. A wine clearly showing its quality and breeding. Fragrant and concentrated, with firm but ripe tannins on the palate, a touch of leafiness. Very Bordeaux in structure with dark blackcurrant/Cabernet fruit to the fore. Drinking well but will keep.
Closure: Cork
Alcohol: 13.44%
Body: Full
Oak: Oaked
Grapes: 64% Cabernet Sauvignon 33% Merlot 3% Petit Verdot

Chateau-ducru-beaucaillou.com

The wines of La Croix Ducru-Beaucaillou come from the vineyard of Château Ducru-Beaucaillou. This exceptional Médoc terroir is situated between the Gironde River to the east, the centre and the west of the Saint-Julien appellation. The estate owes its name to its “beautiful pebbles” ("beaux cailloux", in French) which, because of their high quartz content, make for soils that are poor in plant nutrients. 

It is precisely this “agrological” paucity, as the late Bordeaux professor and geographer, René Pijassou, described it, that makes them so well-suited to the production of fine wine. In the east, the plots are planted along the rolling Médoc ridges, just above the estuary, while those at the epicentre benefit from a microclimate nurtured by the little La Mouline stream that meanders through the middle of the appellation from west to east before disappearing into the Gironde.