Chateau Grand-Puy-Ducasse 2019

Professional Ratings

• 96 Wine Enthusiast
  From one of the lesser-known Pauillac crus classés, this wine shows plenty of fine structure as well as ripe black currant fruits from the Cabernet Sauvignon in the blend. It is also the succulent fruitiness that shines, lending to a good future.
  Barrel Sample: 94-96
• 95 James Suckling

  Blackcurrants and walnuts with sweet berry and cherry undertones. Full-bodied with chewy tannins and a long, flavorful finish. Linear and intense tannins run the length of the wine with intensity and persistence.

• 95 Vinous
  The 2019 Grand Puy Ducasse is a stunning wine. In 2019, the Grand Vin is statuesque and towering in its beauty, with tons of fruit intensity but none of the harder edges that have characterized some previous vintages. The 2019 has found a way to capture an intense, flamboyant expression of fruit without being too much, as some vintages have been. The result is an absolutely stunning Grand Puy Ducasse that is also the best in recent memory. Raspberry jam, blood orange, mint, pomegranate and spice all build into the beautifully layered finish. Tasted two times.
  Barrel Sample:93-95
• 94 Jeb Dunnuck
  A beautiful effort that does everything right, the 2019 Château Grand-Puy Ducasse offers a rich, medium to full-bodied, concentrated style that shows the inherent elegance, as well as richness, of the vintage. Darker currants, toasted spice, cedar pencil, and tobacco notes all define the bouquet, and it's quintessentially Pauillac with its aromatics as well as structure. It already offers pleasure, particularly with a decant (I followed this bottle for multiple days), but it will certainly benefit from 5-7 years in the cellar and is going to shine for at least two decades.
• 93 Wine Spectator

  Well-packed, showing black currant and blackberry fruit flavors, which are marked by bramble and savory accents and carried by fresh acidity through a finish that's scored by humus, tobacco and iron. A textbook, austere, driven and age-worthy Pauillac. Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. Best from 2024.

• 92 Decanter
  Lovely deep purple color gives this an attractive Pauillac strength both visually and on the firm cassis-led attack. This is attractive, with well-worked but plentiful tannins and touches of austerity in the way you hope for in a young Pauillac. This is well balanced with firm cassis fruits and has a chewiness to the tannins that becomes more apparent on the finish. Spice and fresh mint leaf add interest and typicity. Tasted twice three weeks apart.
  Barrel Sample:92
• 90 Robert Parker's Wine Advocate

  The 2019 Grand-Puy-Ducasse exhibits aromas of raspberries, currants and fruit liqueur mingled with subtle hints of loamy soil and pencil shavings. Medium to full-bodied, fleshy and demonstrative, with an ample core of fruit, ripe tannins and lively acids and a finish subtly marked by alcoholic warmth, this is more elegant than its muscular, powerful 2018 predecessor; but it's held back by that touch of alcoholic heat. The new ambition that's animating this historically lackluster estate, however, is more than evident, and there are surely great things to come from this address. Best after 2025.