95pts James Suckling

This is so savory and delicious with dark-berry and mushroom character and cedar undertones. Lavender and smoke as well. Full body, firm and silky tannins and a flavorful finish. 

94pts Wine Enthusiast

Richly juicy and intense, this wine is massive, with concentrated tannins and dusty texture. The wine has weight and density but is also impressively fresh with acidity. It's a successful combination for this second wine of Ducru-Beaucaillou. Drink from 2027. 

94pts points Vinous

The 2018 La Croix Ducru-Beaucaillou is an outrageously beautiful, vivid wine. Gravel, crushed rocks, menthol, lavender, espresso, licorice and dark spice all infuse a racy, sumptuous Saint-Julien loaded with personality and class. In 2018 La Croix is especially fine. Ample, voluptuous and racy to the core, the 2018 is stunning in its beauty. I can't wait to taste it from bottle. 

93pts Decanter

The 2018 Croix has an IPT of 96 that comes from the unusually small size and thick skins of the Merlots, Cabernets and Petit Verdots. It's a huge wine filled with deep, vivid and intense pencil lead, cassis and sweet black cherry, with a silky texture. It's aged in 70% new oak but this is already well integrated, and the wine is wonderfully stretched out through the palate. An impressive La Croix. 3.75pH. 

93pts Jeb Dunnuck

While the 2018 La Croix Ducru-Beaucaillou is often thought of as the second wine of Ducru-Beaucaillou, it’s actually from a separate parcel on the northern part of the estate and is a stand-alone wine based on 55% Merlot, 42% Cabernet Sauvignon, and 3% Petit Verdot that will spend 12 months in 60% new French oak. Offering terrific purity of fruit as well as notes of graphite, lead pencil, cassis, and blackberries, it’s medium to full-bodied, has a distinct sense of minerality, good structure, and outstanding length. I’d be thrilled to drink bottles over the coming decade or more. 

93pts Robert Parker's Wine Advocate

This is not a second wine as such, because it comes from a dedicated part of the vineyard, located on the south bank of La Mouline. The 2018 La Croix de Beaucaillou is a blend of 62% Cabernet Sauvignon, 35% Merlot and 3% Petit Verdot, to be aged 12 months in 60% new barriques. It has a pH of 3.75, 15% alcohol and an IPT (total polyphenol index) of 96. Deep garnet-purple colored, it is a little closed and broody to begin, offering subtle notions of fertile loam, tobacco, truffles and cast iron pan with a core of crème de cassis, blackberry compote and boysenberries with hints of underbrush and bay leaves. Full, rich and seductive in the mouth, it has firm, rounded tannins and just enough freshness to lift the dense fruit to a long finish. 

Winemaker's Notes

La Croix Ducru-Beaucaillou is an original expression of the terroirs of Ducru-Beaucaillou, a blend that is one of a kind. Ducru-Beaucaillou’s elitist approach is fully at work here. As is a passion, that of a team dedicated to excellence. 

A high-flying wine that perfectly expresses its terroir of exception. This wine blends a high proportion of Cabernet Sauvignon (around 60% each year), completed with Merlot Noir (35% to 37%) as well as a subtly spicy touch of Petit Verdot (3% to 5%).

Powerful, silky, very aromatic, La Croix Ducru-Beaucaillou beguiles with its bouquet, its balance, its remarkable finesse and its lengthy finish. A great cuvée that stimulates, then captivates the senses; it is the perfect introduction to the Borie signature.

Vineyard Notes

The wines of La Croix Ducru-Beaucaillou come from the vineyard of Château Ducru-Beaucaillou. This exceptional Médoc terroir is situated between the Gironde River to the east, the centre and the west of the Saint-Julien appellation. The estate owes its name to its “beautiful pebbles” ("beaux cailloux", in French) which, because of their high quartz content, make for soils that are poor in plant nutrients. 

It is precisely this “agrological” paucity, as the late Bordeaux professor and geographer, René Pijassou, described it, that makes them so well-suited to the production of fine wine. In the east, the plots are planted along the rolling Médoc ridges, just above the estuary, while those at the epicentre benefit from a microclimate nurtured by the little La Mouline stream that meanders through the middle of the appellation from west to east before disappearing into the Gironde.

Blend: 62% Cabernet Sauvignon, 35% Merlot and 3% Petit Verdot