Chateau Beau-Sejour Becot 2016

Professional Ratings

• 95 James Suckling
  Extremely aromatic and lifted on the nose with wild fruit and flowers, as well as chalk and mushroom undertones. Full body and ultra-fine tannins with beautiful grace and balance. Shows structure yet refinement at the same time. Needs four to five years to come completely together, but already so beautiful. Drink after 2023.
• 95 Wine Enthusiast
  This wine has a smoky quality, with ripe tannins and dense blackberry and spice flavors as well as wonderful freshness. The wine has considerable potential, rich in tannins and acidity. It will be ready to drink from 2025.
• 95 Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
  Medium to deep garnet-purple colored, the 2016 Beau-Sejour Becot (80% Merlot, 15% Cabernet Franc and 5% Cabernet Sauvignon) is just a little closed to begin, opening out to reveal beautiful chocolate-covered cherries, preserved plums and black raspberries scents with touches of stewed tea, tobacco, red roses and cinnamon stick. Full-bodied and jam-packed with perfumed fruit layers, it has a rock-solid frame of ripe, finely grained tannins and layer upon layer of provocative black fruit and savory layers on the finish.
• 95 Jeb Dunnuck
  Showing spectacularly well on the two occasions I was able to taste it, the 2016 Château Beau-Séjour Bécot is a blend of 80% Merlot, 15% Cabernet Franc, and 5% Cabernet Sauvignon, aged 16 months in 90% new oak, and hitting a healthy 14.5% natural alcohol. This straight-up classy, seamless, ultra-fine Saint Emilion offers a beautiful bouquet of red currants, white truffles, spice, and flowers. With brilliant limestone character, fabulous intensity on both the nose and palate, ultra-fine tannins, and a magical texture, it’s approachable today yet has another 20+ years of prime drinking.
• 94 Wine Spectator
  This is a fresh and unencumbered style, with a beam of pure blackberry and raspberry fruit racing through, carried by a polished structure and infused with alluring black tea and incense tones. The finish is velvety, with graphite and tobacco notes buried within. Best from 2022 through 2036.
• 94 Decanter

  Right on the limestone plateau, this has a lovely delivery of extremely ripe black fruits dotted through with minerality and little pulses of electricity. Extremely successful, this will age well thanks to elongated tannins that are chalky in all the right places. Again, we have this slight austerity on the finish, a reminder than 2016 is not the right bank party we saw in 2015, but this is excellent with such a beautiful balance. Drinking Window 2027 - 2050

• 91 Connoisseurs' Guide

  Edging slightly to sweetness in its deep and juicy aromas but not in the least confected and keyed on pulpy, red cherry fruit with a scant inkling of milk chocolate just off to the side, the latest from Château Beau-Séjour-Bécot very much recalls its year-older incarnation if, perhaps, slightly less rich overall. It is once again a tantalizingly supple wine of a somewhat riper bent, and, although surprisingly easy to access now, it closes with enough tannic grip to make a convincing case that better awaits some four or five years hence.