2021 Prelude a Grand-Puy-Ducasse
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Tasting notes
The second wine of the château, the 2021 Prelude A Grand-Puy Ducasse is up-front and ready to go, with charming, perfumed notes of spicy red and black fruits, leather, dried flowers, and tobacco, as well as some classic Pauillac cedar pencil notes. This balanced, medium-bodied, nicely textured effort should keep for 7-8 years or more, if not a decade.
Critic scores
Average Score
Jeb Dunnuck
Antonio Galloni, Vinous
More reviews and scores
The 2021 Prélude à Grand-Puy Ducasse is a pretty, floral second wine. Cedar, sweet pipe tobacco, mint, spice and bright red cherry fruit open nicely in this effortless, gracious Pauillac. The Prélude is classy to the core.
The edge of gunmoke reduction that I found En Primeur is still evident in bottle, and the tannins are a little angular, although the crayon, mint leaf, black cherry, and cassis fruits bring Médoc typicity. 15% new oak.
Touch of reduction right but opens to show bright cherry fruits, some tight tannins through the mid palate, struggles a little with ripeness, chalky tannins on finish.
About the producer
The 40 hectares of this Pauillac Fifth Growth are spread across three sites, pieced together in the 18th century by Pierre Ducasse. Today owned by France’s Crédit Agricole bank, they have some very fine vineyard land, with their northernmost plot neighbouring Mouton and Lafite.