Beaulieu Vineyards, or BV as it's often called, isn't just the house pour for America's White House (having been served to everyone from Eisenhower to Douglas MacArthur, Charles de Gaulle to Winston Churchill, Harry Truman to Queen Elizabeth II), it's responsible for helping to define American winemaking as we know it.

Here's the story of Napa Valley's first cult Cabernet.

Georges de Latour and his wife Fernande.

It all began with a Frenchman named Georges de Latour. De Latour was a chemist by trade, and came from France's Dordogne region (which is just slightly further east of Bordeaux) where he was in the business of producing cream of tartar (an ingredient that's mainly used for making meringues and cakes). And whilst de Latour was not in the wine business, he did gain exposure to wineries, which supplied him the wine casks from which he used to produce baking powder. He would eventually move to California in 1883, and of course he took his business with him!

Yet de Latour would quickly find that his new found neighbours in America weren't nearly as accepting of the byproducts of his factory, which eventually prompted de Latour to move over to Napa Valley in 1900. It was here that we can trace the origins of the name "Beaulieu" - de Latour's wife Fernande was said to have exclaimed beau lieu (to mean "beautiful place") when they had stumbled upon a small ranch in Rutherford, which eventually became the first vineyard under BV. Initially de Latour would mainly focus on simply selling his grapes, all whilst he began making a name for himself as an importer of phylloxera-resistant rootstock from France. Having seen the effects of phylloxera in his native Bordeaux, de Latour knew that California's vineyards would require extensive replanting - this quickly proved true, and de Latour would even establish a nursery in Paris that focused on regrafting resistant rootstocks and exporting them to California.

De Latour showing the BV Ranch #2.

The lengths of de Latour's foresight did not stop there - he had seen the writing on the wall and knew that Prohibition was coming. Perhaps the only person to do so across the whole of America, de Latour would go out and purchase his second vineyard from the Catholic Church, on the south side of Rutherford. Already in 1910, de Latour would spend the next decade fostering a great relationship with the Church, so that when Prohibition finally smacked in 1920, he was able to secure a nationwide permit that allowed him to produce altar wines for the Church. This allowed Beaulieu to thrive throughout Prohibition, where the business expanded significantly, which of course in turn did wonders in helping America get to know the winery. Beaulieu would remain the national supplier of sacramental wines up until 1978.

From de Latour's first vineyard purchase in 1900, Beaulieu would eventually go on a decades spanning shopping spree and snap up vineyard after vineyard. Today Beaulieau Vineyards counts a total of 12 vineyards across Napa Valley's Rutherford, Calistoga, St. Helena, Yountville, Oakville, Whitehall and Silverado. BV remains one of the largest vineyard owners of Napa Valley with over 1,100 acres of vines.

Beaulieu Vineyards' winery today.

As de Latour began cultivating his wines (and through his importation of resistant rootstocks, allowed the rest of Napa Valley to recover as well), he had started off producing wines via a negociant model, before eventually making wines in a borrowed cellar, and eventually in an old barn on their own estate. De Latour would slowly piece together a winery of his own (which was made more expedient as Prohibition had forced many wineries to close, with their equipment going on sale), incrementally purchasing the necessary equipment, from presses and crushers, which would allow him to expand production. Yet ultimately, as the business kept expanding, it eventually came time for Beaulieu to have its own fully operational winery - this came in the form of the Seneca Ewer Winery, which de Latour purchased in 1923. Seneca Ewer was a prominent State Senator and businessman, one of whose many businesses was that of a winery - and even today, this is the official home of Beaulieu Vineyards.

Yet up till this point, quite possibly de Latour's biggest contribution to establishing the Napa Valley wine industry has not yet been told - and that's because after Prohibition had ended, de Latour had brought back from France the incredibly influential Russian-born winemaker, Andre Tchelistcheff. It was 1937 and Beaulieu's then winemaker, Leon Bonnet (a professor at the University of California, Berkeley), had announced that he was retiring, and had thus instructed de Latour to meet with Tchelistcheff.

Andre Tchelistcheff, Russian born winemaker who would help define California's winemaking.

Upon meeting in Paris, de Latour would convince Tchelistcheff to pack his bags and head on over to California - which he promptly did. Tchelistcheff himself was a man whose life could just as well have doubled as a Netflix drama - born in Moscow, he was the son of Russia' Chief Justice, and the godson of the Russian Prince Lev Golitsyn. His family would flee to Kiev at the onset of the Russian Revolution, and Tchelistcheff would himself fight in the Russian Civil War, only to be wounded under machine gun fire and to be left for dead. His father was said to have even held a funeral for him. And yet he somehow made it back alive, and would eventually move to Paris where he already begun to make a name for himself through his scientific research at the Pasteur Institute and the French National Agronomy Institute. This led to Tchelistcheff having received offers from wineries around the world, yet it seems that de Latour had the magic touch!

Tchelistcheff's impact at Beaulieu was incredibly significant and also very immediate. He had arrived in time to bottle the 1936 Cabernet Sauvignon, which was at the time not offered to customers by Beaulieu, and yet upon tasting it, Tchelistcheff had insisted on it being bottled as the winery's flagship label, apparently having remarked "Whatever this is, keep doing it". It was ultimately this 1936 Cabernet Sauvignon that went on to become California's first icon wine, having gained massive international acclaim. Unfortunately, de Latour was never to taste it in its final form, having passed away in the earlier February of 1940 when the wine was bottled - and thus Tchelistcheff would name the wine Georges de Latour Private Reserve, in honour of Beaulieu Vineyards' founder.

Forging on, Tchelistcheff would stay on at Beaulieu up till the 1973 harvest, whilst Fernande, de Latour's wife, would opportunistically continue to snap up prized vineyard parcels. During his more than three decades in California, Tchelistcheff would introduce groundbreaking changes - from modern winemaking techniques that ranged across the need for high standards of sanitation, to the use of smaller French oak barrels for wine aging, replacing pasteurisation with cold fermentation, as well as fostering an awareness of malolactic fermentation and the need for it in winemaking, all the way to higher density vineyards, the reduction of sulphur use, and more meticulous selection of varietals planted which had to be suited for the climate and terroir (which was responsible for bringing Pinot Noir to Napa Valley, and also the development of winegrowing in Oregon and Washington). Tchelistcheff would also make having a laboratory a key part of every winery, and would also help to nurture some of the most lauded American winemakers today, from Joseph Heitz (Heitz Cellars) and Robert Mondavi, to Mike Grgich (Chateau Montelena), as well as Conn Creek Winery, Quilceda Creek Winery and many more.

Reagan was notably big on BV wines!

It was under Tchelistcheff that Beaulieu Vineyards truly polevaulted its way to greatness. What was once just a sacramental table wine maker, was now one of the most coveted wines in the world, beloved by some of the most important historical figures of the 1940's and 1950's. In those golden years, Beaulieu ranked as one of the Big Four Napa Valley producers, together with Inglenook (which was just nearby), Charles Krug and Louis Martini.

Over the course of the seven decades since de Latour had passed on, the estate has since gone through numerous hands, and today belongs to the Australian giant, Treasury Wine Estates (perhaps best known for Penfold's), who acquired the historical winery from Diageo.

Today we're going to try the famous Beaulieu Vineyard Georges de Latour Private Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon. This comes from the 2019 vintage.

Tasting Notes

Colour: Deep Ruby

Aroma: Incredibly aromatic on the open, it's perfumed almost, with vibrant scents of dried roses and violets, much like a potpourri. It's radiant and rich, yet not quite heady or thick, maintaining this quality of being very much high definition in those florals. Backing that is some earthiness in the form of freshly tilled soil, along with fruit reduction, of raspberries and blackberries as both gummies and preserves, here it's almost chewy. Some rustic qualities come through as well, some of that animal hide, adding to this really raw sensibility.

Taste: Medium-bodied here, it's bursting with fruit cordials, yet not quite fully maximising that richness and depth here. Blackcurrants, dark cherries, raspberries, it's vibrant and juicy. More earthiness in the form of fresh soil and forest floors, really precise and evocative at that. And then also alittle grippy on those tannins, with lots of darker fruit skins featuring quite prominently here. It's big on the aromatics, very fruity even, yet only moderate in terms of concentration.

Finish: More of that earthiness persists, with soil, forest floor, tobacco, cloves, all surfacing very nicely. This is accompanied by cherry preserves and fruit leather, as well as raspberry and blackcurrant pastes. It's much more concentrated and taut here, the tannins though still remaining a little grippy.

My Thoughts

A really lovely and elegant Cab Sauv, this was completely impeccable on the nose, so radiant and expressive, with all these florals and earthiness, all of which were perfumed and so high definition. At the same time that rustic quality about it made it so evocative and fresh, really conveying this sense of purity, taking you right into the heart of those vineyards. The fruits as well had this amazing chewiness to it even on the nose. The aromas on this are truly to die for.

The palate delivered much of that same vibrant fruitiness - this isn't one of those overly sweet or heavy Napa Valley wines - it actually leans alittle lighter, although still keeping a healthy richness about it. I really loved the earthiness that came through on the palate in particular, as well as those big aromatics. That said, I found the tannins still alittle grippy, a feature that carried into the finish as well, and that it felt alittle less concentrated than I felt it had the potential to deliver. It has a moderate richness and depth, but if taken a few notches higher, this would be astronomical. 

How do I know the wine is capable of this? Because that peeked out at the finish, where it begin to intensify and concentrate itself, the fruits coming through less juicy but much more dense and compact, which manifested as being more rich and of greater depth. I think with some age we might see that happen.

A very lovely Cab Sauv from Beaulieu!

Kanpai!

@111hotpot