**#1 World Wine of the Year 2022** by James Suckling
#2 Wine Spectator Top 100 (2024 edition - 2021 vintage) 
#55 Top 100 Wines of the USA (2024 edition - 2021 vintage) ~ James Suckling.
#34 Wine Spectator Top 100 (2000 edition - 1997 vintage)
 
100-Points by James Suckling.
WOW! The aromas to this are really exceptional, with a tangerine edge to the blackcurrants, graphite, lead pencil, flowers and wet earth. It changes all the time. So expressive and refined. Full-bodied with great intensity and depth of fruit. The ultra-fine tannins display millions of layers. The texture on the palate is superb and lasts for minutes. This is the new 1974 George de Latour, which was a legend. Real Napa Valley red here. Drinkable now. Benchmark.
Blend: 91% Cabernet Sauvignon, 9% Petit Verdot, aged for 20 months in French oak (95% new).
 
When André Tchelistcheff joined Beaulieu Vineyard in 1938, he tasted the de Latour family’s private wine – what they called “Private Reserve” – from the 1936 vintage. This Cabernet Sauvignon-based wine was so distinctive that Tchelistcheff insisted it be bottled and sold as the winery’s flagship offering. In 1940, Beaulieu Vineyard released the first vintage of Private Reserve and named it in our founder’s honor. The resulting wine became the first release of Georges de Latour Private Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon, a wine that was destined to become Napa Valley’s first “cult” Cabernet. In 70+ years since, Georges de Latour Private Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon has become the benchmark of Napa Valley Cabernet as one of the most collected American wines.
We hand selected grapes from the finest Cabernet Sauvignon vines from the western bench of the Rutherford AVA in our iconic BV Ranches No. 1 and No. 2, originally planted by Georges de Latour in the early 1900s. We focused on clonal selections (6, 4, 169, 7 and 8), which yield small berries with the high skin-to-juice ratio needed to make intense, long-lived wines. The fruit was handpicked and optically sorted once it arrived to the winery in order to ensure the highest quality selection. These specifically chosen vines are deeply rooted in the well-draining alluvial fan soils of Rutherford, considered one of the finest regions in the Napa Valley for Cabernet Sauvignon.
 
Beaulieu Vineyard is a historically significant winery in California's Rutherford AVA that has been producing wine for more than a century. During Prohibition, it managed to obtain a contract to supply sacramental wine to churches, meaning it was able to remain in production between 1920 and 1933 when the Volstead Act was repealed. This makes Beaulieu one of the longest continually operational wineries in the United States.
The company was founded in 1900 by Georges de Latour with the assistance of enologist André Tchelistcheff. Tchelistcheff went on to create the prestige cuvée Georges de Latour Private Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon, and mentored many of the next generation of Napa winemakers, including Robert Mondavi, Mike Grgich and Joe Heitz. The company is currently part of Treasury Wine Estates.
The Beaulieu vineyards sit at the foot of the Mayacamas Mountains in the Rutherford AVA, and are planted with Bordeaux varieties, including Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot, Merlot and Malbec. As well as these plots, Beaulieu has vines in the St Helena, Calistoga and Carneros AVAs. There are many different varieties planted throughout these vineyards – Pinot Gris, Sauvignon Blanc, Marsanne and Roussane, Mourvedre, Touriga Nacional, Merlot and Sangiovese. 
The flagship Beaulieu Vineyard Georges de Latour Private Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon is hand-picked in the vineyard prior to fermentation in French oak barrels, concrete tanks and stainless steel tanks.  After a period of barrel-aging, a selection of the top ten barrels are selected for bottling. 
The remaining Reserve collection is composed of varietal single-vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon wines sourced from various estate vineyards whilst the Napa Valley is the entry level range of a duo of Cabernet Sauviognon and Chardonnay.