2018 Chateau Lagrange Saint-Julien Grand Cru Classe Bordeaux

For anyone that thought top-tier, collectible Grand Cru Classé Bordeaux was out of reach, let the 2018 Château Lagrange Saint-Julien set you straight. It’s a Left Bank stunner that Jeb Dunnuck lauded as “Serious Stuff,” giving it a 97-point score that put it in some very elite company, including Haut-Brion and Mouton-Rothschild.

2018 was a splendid vintage on the Left Bank, yielding generous, opulent wines. In a long, careful harvest that lasted from Sept 20th to October 13th, Lagrange’s winemaking team painstakingly hand-selected whole bunches. Quality was so high that there wasn’t much for the chateau’s optical sorting machine to weed out!

Château Lagrange was already well known and respected even before it was classified a Third Growth in 1855. In 1787, during a trip to Bordeaux, Thomas Jefferson had ranked the wine alongside Mouton, Calon-Ségur, and Pontet-Canet! The sheer size of this domaine, at 118 hectares, gives the winemaking team a wide array of grapes to select for the Grand Vin—and less than HALF typically make the cut. 

The château went through a difficult period in the 20th century before the Suntory Group bought it in 1983. At that time, a third of the vines were dead and the vineyard was overplanted to Merlot. Suntory invested millions of euros in rejuvenating the vineyard—which is hitting its stride today, with an average vine-age of 37 years—and in 2013 the entire winemaking facility was renovated. 

The Japanese investors’ long-term bet paid off—and you get to reap the dividends.

• Fruit Intensity
• Oak Intensity
• Body
• Acidity
• Tannin

• ABV 14.50%
• 1.5 hours
• Now – 2045
• 67% Cabernet Sauvignon28% Merlot5% Petit Verdot
• Serving temperature – 60°
• Cork