2022 Leoville Barton
Buying options
Tasting notes
The class of this terroir shines in 2022. A blend of 83% Cabernet Sauvignon, 11.5% Merlot and 5.5% Cabernet France, it’s precise with more aromatic finesse than Langoa. There’s a floral edge and brightness to the fruit, with savoury, chalky, textured tannins and a wash of fresh minerality that cuts through the dense core of purple and black berry fruit.
Critic scores
Average Score
James Suckling
William Kelley, Wine Advocate
More reviews and scores
The 2022 Léoville Barton has much more delineation and class on the nose: blackberry, cassis, light crushed stone mixed with violets. The palate is medium-bodied with dense black fruit, very grippy in the mouth, clean and pure with well-integrated oak towards the finish. Very composed and persistent, this has a promising and long future ahead. Tasted blind at the Southwold tasting in London.
Shows restraint in this opulent year. Quite complete and refined, and you immediately pick up a bit of sweetness from the fruit of this vintage, but it is not over the top. A lot of finesse and length, with structured, dusty tannins. A no-brainer buy from the vintage. 60% new oak. 83% cabernet sauvignon, 11.5% merlot and 5.5% cabernet franc. Drink from 2027.
The 2022 Léoville Barton is performing brilliantly in bottle, wafting from the glass with aromas of cassis, pencil shavings, pen ink, cigar box and spices. Medium to full-bodied, suave and velvety, it's dense and concentrated, with terrific energy and persistence. As readers will remember, it's the first vintage produced in the estate's new winery, which more than doubled the number of vats, permitting sub-plot by sub-plot harvesting and vinification, along with a number of other technical improvements that translate into enhanced purity and precision.
About the producer
Ch. Léoville Barton is a Second Growth Saint-Julien estate, one of the three famous Léoville estates (along with Léoville Poyferré and Léoville Las Cases). Owned by the Barton family (along with Ch. Langoa Barton), it produces classically structured Claret that ages beautifully.