Winemaker Notes
#2 Wine Spectator Top 100 of 2024
This is a truly remarkable vintage of Beaulieu Vineyard's iconic flagship wine. The bouquet is intense with fragrant notes of wild sage, blackcurrant, cedar, and fresh mint. The palate is expansive and full-bodied with a sumptuous mouthfeel, showcasing layers of ripe blackberry, redcurrant, and red rose petal alongside earthier tones of graphite, licorice root, gravely stone, and dark chocolate. Subtle baking spices from the French oak barrel aging provide sandalwood, clove, and Ceylon cinnamon notes, while the signature “Rutherford Dust” tannins are silky, polished, and fine-grained, finishing long with a cocoa powder texture. Slightly reserved upon release but incredibly drinkable, elegant, and pleasing, the tannins provide approachability with beautiful harmony and balance. There is significant presence, depth, and concentration in this Private Reserve, foreshadowing cellar-worthy potential that will continue to evolve, unfold, and develop across the next few decades.
Blend: 94% Cabernet Sauvignon, 6% Petit Verdot
Professional Ratings
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
Deep garnet in color, the 2021 Beaulieu Vineyard Georges de Latour Private Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon may rank among the winery’s greatest achievements since the legendary 1958 and 1951 vintages. The wine unfolds with refined aromas of black fruits, bold berries, and a whisper of dark chocolate. On the palate, it is sublime—delivering a graceful tapestry of persistent black fruits, graphite, and finely woven oak nuances. Savor it alongside a dry-aged côte de boeuf, simply seasoned and finished with a red wine reduction. (Tasted: July 23, 2025, San Francisco, CA, USA)
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Jeb Dunnuck
Lastly, the flagship 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon Georges De Latour Private Reserve is in the same ballpark as the 2019 and is an incredibly elegant yet concentrated 2021 that does everything right. Purple-hued, with ample cassis, wild sage, graphite, and darker chocolate-like aromatics, it picks up a Graves-like gravelly earth character with air and is full-bodied, has ripe, polished tannins, beautiful overall balance, and a great finish. As with many of the top 2021s, it s a touch reserved and closed and needs 4-5 years of bottle age, but will drink well for 30 years.
Rating: 98+ -
James Suckling
Intense aromas of iodine, blackcurrants, cedar, sandalwood and mint follow through to a medium to full body with silky tannins that spread across the palate and expand in a balanced and harmonized way. Hints of chocolate and fruit at the end. Some tar.
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Wine Enthusiast
Deep and brooding with concentration and velvety flavors. A subtle floral lift spins through flavors of sweet kitchen spices, black fruits, and savory length. A sprinkle of dried spices and tobacco add additional depth. Powdery fine tannins and a lengthy finish complete a Cabernet ready to drink now with the potential to develop for years in bottle.
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Wine Spectator
This is packed with dark, winey flavors of black currant and blackberry paste underscored with alder, sweet tobacco, warm paving stone and black licorice notes, while a violet accent fills the background. The polished finish makes this accessible now, but there's plenty of life ahead. Drink now through 2042.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
BV's 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon Private Reserve Georges de Latour is smooth, melded, cedary and complete. Cherries and gentle earth notes mark the nose, framed by new French oak (95%), while the palate is medium to full-bodied, tannic yet silky, with a lingering, cigar box finish.
One of the most prestigious wines of the world capable of great power and grace, Napa Valley Cabernet is a leading force in the world of fine, famous, collectible red wine. Today the Napa Valley and Cabernet Sauvignon are so intrinsically linked that it is difficult to discuss one without the other. But it wasn’t until the 1970s that this marriage came to light; sudden international recognition rained upon Napa with the victory of the Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars 1973 Cabernet Sauvignon in the 1976 Judgement of Paris.
Cabernet Sauvignon undoubtedly dominates Napa Valley today, covering half of the land under vine, commanding the highest prices per ton and earning the most critical acclaim. Cabernet Sauvignon’s structure, acidity, capacity to thrive in multiple environs and ability to express nuances of vintage make it perfect for Napa Valley where incredible soil and geographical diversity are found and the climate is perfect for grape growing. Within the Napa Valley lie many smaller sub-AVAs that express specific characteristics based on situation, slope and soil—as a perfect example, Rutherford’s famous dust or Stags Leap District's tart cherry flavors.