Review
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SKU: 2035043
750ml
$74.98
Available: 24+
96 Points | Jeff Leve, The Wine Cellar Insider
Jeff Leve called this the finest wine the Bécot family had produced to that point, praising its opulent, polished texture, silky red fruit, crushed-rock minerality, thyme and floral accents. He also singled out its exceptional quality relative to its price and recommended 8–10 years of cellaring.
95 Jeb Dunnuck
Showing spectacularly well on the two occasions I was able to taste it, the 2016 Château Beau-Séjour Bécot is a blend of 80% Merlot, 15% Cabernet Franc, and 5% Cabernet Sauvignon, aged 16 months in 90% new oak, and hitting a healthy 14.5% natural alcohol. This straight-up classy, seamless, ultra-fine Saint Emilion offers a beautiful bouquet of red currants, white truffles, spice, and flowers. With brilliant limestone character, fabulous intensity on both the nose and palate, ultra-fine tannins, and a magical texture, it’s approachable today yet has another 20+ years of prime drinking.
95 James Suckling
Extremely aromatic and lifted on the nose with wild fruit and flowers, as well as chalk and mushroom undertones. Full body and ultra-fine tannins with beautiful grace and balance. Shows structure yet refinement at the same time. Needs four to five years to come completely together, but already so beautiful. Drink after 2023.
95 Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Medium to deep garnet-purple colored, the 2016 Beau-Sejour Becot (80% Merlot, 15% Cabernet Franc and 5% Cabernet Sauvignon) is just a little closed to begin, opening out to reveal beautiful chocolate-covered cherries, preserved plums and black raspberries scents with touches of stewed tea, tobacco, red roses and cinnamon stick. Full-bodied and jam-packed with perfumed fruit layers, it has a rock-solid frame of ripe, finely grained tannins and layer upon layer of provocative black fruit and savory layers on the finish.
95 Wine Enthusiast
This wine has a smoky quality, with ripe tannins and dense blackberry and spice flavors as well as wonderful freshness. The wine has considerable potential, rich in tannins and acidity. It will be ready to drink from 2025.
94 Decanter
Right on the limestone plateau, this has a lovely delivery of extremely ripe black fruits dotted through with minerality and little pulses of electricity. Extremely successful, this will age well thanks to elongated tannins that are chalky in all the right places. Again, we have this slight austerity on the finish, a reminder than 2016 is not the right bank party we saw in 2015, but this is excellent with such a beautiful balance. Drinking Window 2027 - 2050.
94 Wine Spectator
This is a fresh and unencumbered style, with a beam of pure blackberry and raspberry fruit racing through, carried by a polished structure and infused with alluring black tea and incense tones. The finish is velvety, with graphite and tobacco notes buried within. Best from 2022 through 2036.
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The world's most influential fine-wine producer and the benchmark for Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne and the Rhone. Its appellation (AOC) system codifies geography, grape and method, and its wines set the global standard for age-worthiness and terroir expression.
The world's largest fine-wine region, built around blends of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. Divided by the Gironde estuary into the structured Left Bank and the plush, Merlot-led Right Bank, it is the historic benchmark for age-worthy claret and sweet Sauternes.
2016 in Bordeaux is a benchmark vintage: a wet spring gave way to a dry, sunny summer, producing fresh, deeply aromatic wines with ripe tannins, remarkable balance and excellent long-term aging potential.
A blend of the classic Bordeaux red varieties - typically Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc, often with Petit Verdot and Malbec - balancing structure, fruit and aromatic complexity. The template for age-worthy reds in Bordeaux and worldwide.
From our daily offers · October 13, 2026
Original offer text. Use today’s product price and availability above. Outdated or unverified offer prices are omitted. This article may feature other wines.
Ten Years On · Pre-Arrival · Ex-Château
SAINT-ÉMILION · LIMESTONE PLATEAU · PRE-ARRIVAL
The 10-Year Bordeaux Offerings Keep Coming
Ten-year-old Bordeaux keeps landing on our desk this month, and we're not complaining.
This time it's Saint-Émilion, and it's from a family we've done business with for a very long time: the Bécots of Château Beau-Séjour Bécot.
We've watched this estate for more than two decades, long enough to see it go through a real transformation. Beau-Séjour Bécot sits on some of the best limestone dirt in Saint-Émilion, on the plateau just west of the village, the kind of terroir that doesn't need much help to make great wine. For years, though, the wines leaned a little heavier and a little more polished than the site deserved.
That changed when the estate brought in consulting enologist Thomas Duclos, whose whole approach is about getting out of the way of the fruit. Less extraction, more precision, and a wine that actually tastes like where it's grown instead of how it's made.
Juliette Bécot once described it to us like a woman who used to wear too much makeup. The beauty was always there. It just needed the makeup to come off.
The 2016 sits right in that evolution, and it shows. It's a blend of 80% Merlot, 15% Cabernet Franc and 5% Cabernet Sauvignon, aged 16 months in 90% new French oak, 14.5% alcohol. That's a lot of new wood for a wine this precise, but the limestone keeps everything honest. Nothing here feels overdressed.
If you collect Bordeaux, you already know why that matters. Provenance on an older bottle is everything, and Ex-Château original packaging is about as clean as it gets.
A GREAT VINTAGE, TEN YEARS ON
2016 is one of the great modern Bordeaux vintages, full stop. Concentration, freshness, ripe tannins, the kind of balance that lets a wine drink well young and still have decades ahead of it.
Beau-Séjour Bécot made the most of it. Ten years on, the wine is just starting to show what it's really going to be.
OUR TASTING NOTE
We pulled a bottle recently to check in on it, and it did not disappoint. Black cherry and ripe plum up front, with violets and a little licorice, then crushed limestone underneath that's unmistakably this site. Give it air and cedar, tobacco and baking spice start to show.
On the palate it's dense but never heavy. Tannins are polished rather than gripping, the fruit stays vibrant, and that mineral edge keeps everything honest through a long finish. Power, yes, but nothing excessive.
This is a wine that's going to keep getting better. The critics landed in the same place: a 96 from Jeff Leve, four 95s and two 94s from some of the most trusted names in the business.
TODAY'S OFFER
Pre-Arrival · Straight Ex-Château · Original 6-Packs
Estimated Arrival: December 2026
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY
96 Points | Jeff Leve, The Wine Cellar Insider
Jeff Leve called this the finest wine the Bécot family had produced to that point, praising its opulent, polished texture, silky red fruit, crushed-rock minerality, thyme and floral accents. He also singled out its exceptional quality relative to its price and recommended 8–10 years of cellaring.
95 Points | Jeb Dunnuck
Dunnuck was particularly enthusiastic, having tasted the wine twice and finding it spectacular on both occasions. He praised its redcurrant, white truffle, spice, and floral aromatics, along with its brilliant limestone character, exceptional intensity, and beautifully refined tannins. What impressed him most was the seamless texture and elegance, describing a wine that is already approachable but possesses another 20-plus years of prime drinking potential.
95 Points | James Suckling
Suckling found an intensely aromatic wine, with wild fruit, flowers, chalk, and mushroom notes. Full-bodied yet remarkably graceful, the palate displays ultra-fine tannins, excellent structure, and beautiful balance. He emphasized the combination of refinement and power, recommending drinking after 2023.
95 Points | Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Wine Advocate described a beautifully layered wine offering chocolate-covered cherries, preserved plums, black raspberries, tobacco, roses, and cinnamon. Full-bodied and packed with expressive fruit, the palate is supported by ripe, finely grained tannins, with complex black fruit and savory notes carrying through the long finish.
95 Points | Wine Enthusiast
Wine Enthusiast highlighted the wine's smoky character, dense blackberry fruit, spice, and impressive freshness. Rich tannins and vibrant acidity provide considerable aging potential, with the reviewer recommending drinking from 2025 onward.
94 Points | Decanter
Decanter praised the extraordinary limestone character of the wine, with ripe black fruit, mineral notes, and a wonderful sense of energy. The chalky, elongated tannins provide structure and longevity, while the balance between richness and freshness makes this an exceptionally successful 2016. Drinking Window: 2027–2050.
94 Points | Wine Spectator
Wine Spectator found a beautifully fresh and polished Saint-Émilion, with pure blackberry and raspberry fruit supported by black tea, incense, graphite, and tobacco. The finish is velvety and refined, with excellent structure and balance. Best from 2022 through 2036.
A LONG RELATIONSHIP, ONE GREAT OPPORTUNITY
We've had a long relationship with this family, and it's been genuinely rewarding to watch the wines get more precise and more honest to their terroir with each vintage.
The 2016 is a great snapshot of that progress: a serious Saint-Émilion, from a great vintage, with ten years of bottle age already built in.
