Like its stablemate Langoa Barton, the 2019 Léoville Barton is a timeless classic, made for patient connoisseurs. Offering up aromas of blackcurrants, plums, pencil shavings and licorice, it's full-bodied, deep and concentrated, its deep core of fruit framed by a chassis of rich, powdery tannin that makes itself felt on the youthfully firm finish. While it's clearly built for the long haul, its structural seamlessness and mid-palate plenitude mark it out as one of the finest wines from this château in recent times. Could it be a more concentrated modern-day version of Anthony Barton's brilliant 1985?
This great Médoc second growth has been on a qualitative roll in recent vintages, and the estate's brand new winery and chai, equipped with smaller fermentation vats to permit more precise parcel-by-parcel selection, will surely see Léoville and Langoa Barton hit even greater heights. The 2019 vintage, however, made in the old winery, has turned out superbly, uniting the Barton family's signature Cabernet-driven classicism with all the fleshy, perfumed charm of the vintage. In the vineyards, a steadily increasing percentage is farmed organically, and the old manual methods are perpetuated (tying the vines to their supporting stakes using osier instead of string; removing lateral shoots by hand, etc.). As proprietors of much of the appellation's woodland, the Barton family have always been in the forefront of newly fashionable "agroforestry." And period replanting increasingly aims to adapt grape variety to soil type, the heart of Léoville-Barton being of course Cabernet Sauvignon growing on the superbly situated quaternary gravel soils of Saint-Julien. In the cellar, barrels are largely supplied by Nadalié, Maury and Taransaud, and racking is traditional. A comparatively large percentage of press wine lends backbone and classic grip to the assemblage.