Château Beau-Séjour Bécot 2023

Château Beau-Séjour Bécot is a fantastic example of a fleshy, hedonistic, and powerful expression of Saint-Émilion terroir.  Château Beau-Séjour Bécot is owned by the Becot family who has overseen the trajectory of this property for many a generation.  This esteemed producer is now a Saint-Émilion Grand Crus Classés Class B estate and shares this title with exalted properties like Château Valandraud.  But the road to success wasn’t always smooth sailing for this impeccable property.  Château Beau-Séjour Bécot did lose its classification in 1986 because of a family decision to merge the vineyards with other holdings. But the Becot family are vignerons, and a determined group of individuals.  They hired the incredibly gifted oenologist and consultant Michel Rolland to help them attain their classification once more.  Within ten years’ time, the property’s classification was restored – a triumph.

Château Beau-Séjour Bécot boasts a long and interesting history in the Right Bank.  Vines on the grounds were first cultivated by the ancient Romans who recognized the promise of its terroir over 2,000 years ago. If one is fortunate enough to visit the grounds of this property, they will find stone ruins scattered amongst the vines to prove this.  Subsequently, the property then was owned by the Monks of the Saint Martin Abbey in Saint-Émilion, who tended diligently to the vines and the vines of Château Canon as well.  In 1787, with the help of Carles de Figeac, Jacques de Carles named this property Château Beau-Séjour, which meant something along the lines of, “beautiful resting place.”

The property changed hands many times until the Becot family took over the property and managed it for many generations.  In 1979, the family made the decision to merge their vineyards which led to the demotion of the property.  Château Beau-Séjour Bécot was still producing excellent wines in spite of this violation, and Michel Rolland vouched for the estate’s legitimacy to the Saint-Émilion Grand Cru.  Despite the support, the Becot family would have to wait until the Classification was re-evaluated ten years later.   In that period, they worked tirelessly and made many upgrades to the viticultural process including harvesting at peak ripeness, lowering yields, using New Oak, and other practices to create a richly concentrated and hedonistic wine. Robert Parker was known to have sung many praises for this estate’s wines, and eventually when the reevaluation took place Château Beau-Séjour Bécot was promoted without question.  The property received the high honor among the top estates in Saint-Émilion. 

The terroir here is home to the traditional limestone that is associated with the appellation, and there are plenty of labyrinthian tunnels and quarries that run beneath the estate.  The vines at Château Beau-Séjour Bécot are a bit older and are typically 45 years old.  Merlot is clearly the star of the show in this wine, and it is interspersed with the lively varietal Cabernet Franc for added dimension and complexity.  The wine does require 10-15 years in bottle prior to being enjoyed, and they are very much worth the wait.

"A brilliant wine from this estate in 2023. Gorgeous bright purple rim. Fresh blueberries and black cherries on the nose with crayon, pencil lead, tapenade, olive and liquorice. Tangy and so alive on the palate, crystalline and pure, really clean and clear. The limestone comes through strongly in the wet stone aspects, a metallic coating of the mouth. This has a touch of tension, with mouthwatering acidity, as well as some subtle fleshiness that really expands towards the finish, where the wine settles and grows. A lovely, very singular style. Great juiciness, almost salty strawberry juice with cranberry and raspberry that really lingers. This will grow into a beauty. Tannins are flawless, there’s density but no heaviness. One of the best! The second year with a significant part of massale selection Cabernet Franc in the blend. 39hl/ha yield. 3.5pH, 68 IPT." - Georgina Hindle, Decanter, (05/07/2024), Ratings: 97

"The 2023 Beau-Séjour Bécot is fabulous. Rich, opulent and explosive to the core, the 2023 offers up a heady mélange of dark red/purplish fruit, spice, lavender, rose petal, blood orange and bright saline notes. As always, Cabernet Franc plays an important role in shaping the aromatic and flavor profile. The 2023 is an absolute stunner. It’s the first vintage made in the new cellar. That's of course not enough of a track record to make any definitive assessments, but in the 2023, I see a wine with more aromatic presence, greater precision and more refined tannins than any recent vintage I can recall. In a word: magnificent. Tasted two times." - Antonio Galloni, Vinous, (04/30/2024), Ratings: 95-98

This beautifully situated 22-hectare estate, sitting on Saint-Émilion's limestone plateau, is emerging from a period of extensive restructuring (favoring high-quality massal selections), and now benefits from a state-of-the-art new winery, with vats adapted to each parcel's production and efficient refrigerations technology permitting the rapid cooling of the crop on reception. What has transformed this estate since 2018, however, has just as much to do with a change of approach. Long but gentle macerations, more judicious extraction and a much defter touch with the choice of new oak are delivering wines of much greater finesse and complexity, without any loss of intensity, and the quality of this superb terroir is now front and center in the glass. The run of quality continues with the 2023 vintage, which the estate's vineyards weathered without any appreciable signs of hydric stress to produce a beautifully suave and sensual wine of striking purity and perfume." - William Kelley, The Wine Advocate, (04/26/2024), Ratings: 96-98

"The first vintage produced in the estate's highly functional new winery, the 2023 Beau-Séjour Bécot has turned out beautifully and looks likely to rival or surpass the brilliant 2022. Unfurling in the glass with notes of raspberries, dark berries and minty cherries mingled with notions of iris, wisteria and lilac, it's medium to full-bodied, layered and velvety, with a suave attack that prefaces a cool, complete core of fruit that's pure, perfumed and mineral, concluding with a long, saline finish. It's a blend of 77% Merlot and 23% Cabernet Franc that was harvested from September 7 to October 4, sub-block by sub-block."