Winemaker Notes
#81 James Suckling Top 100 Wines of the World 2025
#23 Vinous Top 100 of 2025
Blend: 83% Cabernet Sauvignon, 11.5% Merlot, 5.5% Cabernet Franc
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
Cassis, graphite, smoky tobacco, violets, and a wonderful sense of minerality all emerge from the 2022 Château Léoville Barton, a riveting Saint-Julien that shows the style of this estate while bringing the richness and depth of the vintage. Full-bodied, concentrated, and powerful, it has enough tannins to warrant a decade of cellaring and will have 30+ years of prime drinking. Rating:-98+
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James Suckling
Shows restraint in this opulent year. Quite complete and refined, and you immediately pick up a bit of sweetness from the fruit of this vintage, but it is not over the top. A lot of finesse and length, with structured, dusty tannins. A no-brainer buy from the vintage. 60% new oak. 83% cabernet sauvignon, 11.5% merlot and 5.5% cabernet franc. Drink from 2027.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2022 Léoville Barton is performing brilliantly in bottle, wafting from the glass with aromas of cassis, pencil shavings, pen ink, cigar box and spices. Medium to full-bodied, suave and velvety, it's dense and concentrated, with terrific energy and persistence. As readers will remember, it's the first vintage produced in the estate's new winery, which more than doubled the number of vats, permitting sub-plot by sub-plot harvesting and vinification, along with a number of other technical improvements that translate into enhanced purity and precision. Rating: 97+
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Wine Spectator
Violet and iris notes hint at its purity, while the cold cast iron– and charcoal-accented structure warns that patience is required. In between is a core that offers sleek refinement, with shimmering cassis, plum and black cherry puree. Tightly drawn through the pinpoint finish, but everything is in proportion. Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc.
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Decanter
Chewy, lively, bright, clean, intense, sleek, sharp and straight - this has it all. Excellent definition and poise, refined but still full of life and flavour. Appealing shots of milk chocolate, blackcurrant, black cherry and fragranced flowers. Not so dense or layered or plush, more lean, and straightforward but lovely detail and precision to the tannins balancing the density of fruit and energy of the lively acidity. Fun, serious, fruity, mineral - lots going on here. Simply gorgeous! I love it.
Barrel Sample: 96
One of the world’s most classic and popular styles of red wine, Bordeaux-inspired blends have spread from their homeland in France to nearly every corner of the New World. Typically based on either Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot and supported by Cabernet Franc, Malbec and Petit Verdot, the best of these are densely hued, fragrant, full of fruit and boast a structure that begs for cellar time. Somm Secret—Blends from Bordeaux are generally earthier compared to those from the New World, which tend to be fruit-dominant.
An icon of balance and tradition, St. Julien boasts the highest proportion of classed growths in the Médoc. What it lacks in any first growths, it makes up in the rest: five amazing second growth chateaux, two superb third growths and four well-reputed fourth growths. While the actual class rankings set in 1855 (first, second, and so on the fifth) today do not necessarily indicate a score of quality, the classification system is important to understand in the context of Bordeaux history. Today rivalry among the classed chateaux only serves to elevate the appellation overall.
One of its best historically, the estate of Leoville, was the largest in the Médoc in the 18th century, before it was divided into the three second growths known today as Chateau Léoville-Las-Cases, Léoville-Poyferré and Léoville-Barton. Located in the north section, these are stone’s throw from Chateau Latour in Pauillac and share much in common with that well-esteemed estate.
The relatively homogeneous gravelly and rocky top soil on top of clay-limestone subsoil is broken only by a narrow strip of bank on either side of the “jalle,” or stream, that bisects the zone and flows into the Gironde.
St. Julien wines are for those wanting subtlety, balance and consistency in their Bordeaux. Rewarding and persistent, the best among these Bordeaux Blends are full of blueberry, blackberry, cassis, plum, tobacco and licorice. They are intense and complex and finish with fine, velvety tannins.