2024 Ch Larcis Ducasse, St Emilion

DUE OCT/NOV 2027

An excellent wine from this challenging vintage. It shows good depth and density of fruit with fine, silky tannins, but it’s nevertheless reactive. Juicy and quite polished, with a round core of fruit on the medium-bodied palate before a long, elegant finish. Lovely precision and focus from the filigreed tannins. 85% merlot and 15% cabernet franc.

96-97 points jamessuckling.com

The 2024 Larcis Ducasse was showing well during our tasting, revealing ripe, expressive aromas of violet, dark berries, smoke, pencil lead and subtle oak. Medium to full-bodied, layered and seamless, it is both lively and elegant with a juicy core of fruit and velvety tannins that gently assert themselves on the youthfully chalky finish. The fruit appears perfectly ripe—avoiding the over-ripeness observed in some recent vintages—allowing the wine to convey the character of its limestone terroir. The blend is composed of 85% Merlot and 15% Cabernet Franc.

92-94 points robertparker.com

Good grip, plenty of character and depth through the palate, freshly cut herbs, blueberry and blackcurrant, savoury with floral character. Harvest 24 September to 7 October. 50% new oak, Gratiot-Atimane family.

94 points janeanson.com

The 2024 Bordeaux en primeur campaign is unfolding in the shadow of a cool, wet growing season that challenged winemakers across the region. After three warm, early vintages in a row, 2024 has returned to a more classic, slow-developing profile — think freshness, lower alcohols, and finer tannins, especially from top terroirs. It’s not a blockbuster year, but it may well be a sleeper vintage for those who value structure, clarity, and elegance over sheer concentration.

The early tastings point to Cabernet-led wines in the Médoc with good definition and precision. Pauillac and St-Julien performed particularly well, especially on gravelly soils that drained effectively during the wet spring. Margaux is more variable. On the Right Bank, it’s a Merlot vintage only for those with the nerves (and the vineyard work) to wait. Pomerol is solid but less flamboyant than recent years, while St-Émilion was more mixed, with limestone-based sites faring best.

Sauternes is limited but excellent in quality, with botrytis arriving late but clean. Dry whites from Pessac-Léognan and the Graves are particularly crisp and aromatic, likely some of the standout wines of the vintage. Alcohol levels are down across the board, as are pHs, so there’s great freshness — and lower yields in many places due to poor flowering or late mildew pressure.

Overall, 2024 Bordeaux is a return to classicism, with great terroirs and disciplined producers making wines of refinement, not richness.