2024 Léoville Barton & Langoa Barton – En Primeur

Just two noteworthy wines are being released today among a flurry of random Châteaux.

2024 Château Léoville Barton (2ème Cru Saint-Julien)

92 Cabernet Sauvignon, 6 Merlot, 2 Cabernet Franc: 60% new oak: 13% alc

As always, there is no shortage of class here.  Assembled from fabulously formal and deeply resonant ingredients, lashings of oak spice, raucous tannins and unexpected savoury elements combine to make ’24 Léoville Barton an absolute belter.  Despite a more combative finish than expected, I strongly feel this will not be a long-term wine but a consummate middle-distance specialist.  Be sure to ask the question when it reaches its tenth birthday, as I am certain it will already show ravishingly suave fruit as the proud Cabernet core finds harmony.  18.5/20

2024 Château Langoa Barton (3ème Cru Saint-Julien)

52 Cabernet Sauvignon, 40 Merlot, 8 Cabernet Franc: 60% new oak: 12.9% alc

This is an exceptionally bright style of Langoa, with redcurrant and mulberry hints and a layered, silky chassis.  There is a firmness in the background, and the oak is certainly bold and direct, but it is very cleverly delivered.  Refined and classical, this is a perfect example of a finely tuned Langoa that has not panicked in 2024 and kept to its tried and tested recipe for success.  17.5/20 QP

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 MATTHEW JUKES SCORE CONVERSION CHART

As a wine taster and writer, I prefer you to read my words rather than focus on my scores.  This is why I rarely score wines unless I write an extensive report like this one.  I believe that scores taken from the context of tasting notes are essentially meaningless.  I describe my featured wines fully so you can imagine the aroma, shape, and flavour.  Scores don’t help with this.  You will know that several different scoring methods are used in the global wine trade.  Most of my wine-writing colleagues have been tempted to the dark side, using the 100-point rating system.  A few, usually older types, cling to the venerable five-star rating.  As you know, I favour the 20-point score.  It’s how I was taught and dovetails nicely with how I judge wines.  For those unfamiliar with the 20-point scoring system, here is a table that translates it into various other formats.

AND THERE IS MORE – Every year, when I write my Burgundy En Primeur Report, I select only the Rapport Qualité Prix (which I shorten to QP) wines that represent stunning quality and accuracy combined with fair pricing. It is these wines I make a fuss about, and I am extremely strict about only featuring the very most important of the campaign.  Fair pricing is a commodity that has avoided Bordeaux for many years, causing global consternation and, in most cases, a tacit boycott of many of the wines. If wines are released with timid reductions this year or come out with more expensive pricing than any comparable bottled wines already on the market, then I regard this as a miss.  So, for the first time, I will add QP accreditation to my very favourite Bordeaux En Primeur wines. Suppose these wines are released at appropriate prices (which I deem to be in the 30% reduction compared to last year’s prices, and somewhere along the pricing of the 2014s for the most expensive wines). In that case, you should seriously consider buying them.  Remember that lower-priced wines cannot possibly reduce their prices by tens of percentage points because of ever-rising costs.  Bordeaux is a multichannel region, and it must work together across all price points to entice collectors back to the market.  There ought to be fascinating wines available at all prices in 2024.