This is an exceptional vintage for La Croix. It has voluptuous fruits that emerge from the ripe dense tannins. They are balanced by intense acidity and a crisp edge. The wine, with its still stylish character, is one to age for a long time. Drink this very fine wine from 2025.

Extremely aromatic with crushed-raspberry and plum character. Sweet tobacco, too. Hints of wet earth and dried mushrooms. Medium to full body, silky and racy tannins and an oyster-shell and iodine finish. A beauty. Drink in 2019.

The 2014 La Croix de Beaucaillou has enjoyed a purple patch in recent vintages. The nose on the 2014 appeared to have closed down after bottling, but the quality is still tangible, almost sedate, but exquisitely defined tertiary red berry fruit gradually opens in the glass. The palate is medium-bodied with fine tannin, crisp and energetic, very focused with superb mineralité. There is just a mote of hardness and rigidity on the finish, but that will be abraded by bottle age (and this is one Deuxième Vin that benefits from bottle maturity).