Chateau Beau Site 2018 St Estephe

Chateau Beau-Site 2018 is one of this superb Chateau’s best releases. The growing season helped produce a wine with amazing freshness and structure behind the ripe cassis fruit. It is a lush wine with glossy flavours of chocolate, coffee and dark damson along with classic Bordeaux notes of graphite, earth and spicy red fruit. There is a lovely cherry and redcurrant finish to the wine. It is drinking superbly right now but will continue to show well for many years to come.

Château Beau-Site is amongst a growing list of Bordeaux Chateaus whose wines have improved significantly over the past 20 years but, are still priced at a level that makes them affordable and wonderful value for money. The Chateau’s name comes from its elevated position that gives a fabulous panoramic view over the vineyards. Legend has it that the wines were very highly regarded in the mid-19th century when the 1855 classification was first established but, the owner at the time couldn’t be bothered to send samples to the brokers so the Chateau was overlooked. He was probably too busy enjoying his wines and vista!

Fast forward a few decades to 1955 and the Chateau, which had become run down was sold to Marcel Borie of the negociant house of Borie Manoux. The Chateau is still owned by Borie Manoux which is run today by the Casteja family. Emile Casteja took over the running of the negociant in 1961, he was the son in law of Marcel Borie. Since the 1960s the Chateau has seen steady investment, but this has been ramped up in the past 20 years and the wine has changed from a solid, if unremarkable claret to one which possesses bright, ripe bramble fruit, finesse, depth and complexity. It is very much a classic, traditional Claret that expresses its location and soils but backed with modern wine making.

The Chateau is located near the village of St. Corbian in the North-West of the St-Estephe appellation. It has a fine location on gravel and sandy gravel which is planted with Cabernet Sauvignon (70%), Merlot (25%), Petit Verdot (3%) and Cabernet Franc (2%). The vines average 45 years old and cover 40 hectares.