Beaulieu Vineyard began in 1900, when Georges de Latour bought four acres on the western bench of Rutherford. Fernande de Latour looked at that ranch and called it a beautiful place. The name Beaulieu comes from her line.

The 2022 Private Reserve is drawn from BV Ranches No. 1 and No. 2, the same western bench, vines Georges planted in the early 1900s. The house hand-selected clones 6, 4, 169, 7, and 8. Those selections give small berries and a high skin-to-juice ratio, rooted in the well-draining alluvial-fan soils that made Rutherford a Cabernet bench.

James Suckling, scoring the 2022 at 96, placed the heart of the wine on Rutherford-grown fruit, with about a fifth of the grapes from other sites around Napa Valley. Nine percent Petit Verdot is in the blend for an inky color and a violet accent. The rest is Cabernet Sauvignon.

The ranch is older than most of Napa. The 2022 is on the table now, still juicy, with years ahead of it. What are you waiting to taste?

The house still sets this Cabernet on a long oak table, decanter beside the bottle, with a wall of wines lit behind it. That is the room this Private Reserve was made to enter.

Colin Hay, writing in The Drinks Business in September 2025, gave the 2022 a 97. He found it delicate and soft even with the density and the mid-palate concentration: black licorice, soft sweet spice, macerated berries, a little cassis and kirsch. Pure, refined, rich, and glossy, and long on the finish.

James Suckling scored it 96 and put power and grace in the same glass. He called it a long-running classic from a winery well past its centennial, rich, layered, structured, and worth keeping. The Petit Verdot, in his note, supplies the dark color and the violet. He would drink a bottle now, and he would wait for the best of it from 2030.

The bottle in this photograph is the 2019 Private Reserve. The wine on this page is the 2022.

The 2022 opens with dusty rose, wild violet, and red berries, then caramel cream and sweet baking spice from oak that has already settled into the wine. The palate is plush and wide: cassis, red currant, cherry, and ripe raspberry. The mouthfeel is velvety and viscous. The tannins are the gentle Rutherford Dust the house has signed its Cabernet with for decades. They give the wine shape and still leave it refined.

The finish stays with pomegranate, a kir royale note, flowers, and fresh mint. Beaulieu calls the 2022 drinkable on release, and juicy for many years after that. Suckling's window matches the house: open one now, and keep the rest for 2030 and beyond. Alcohol is 14.9 percent.

Pour the 2022 at $140.

Georges de Latour founded Beaulieu in Rutherford in 1900. The first purchase was those four acres on the western bench. The Private Reserve came a generation later, and it came through André Tchelistcheff.

In the winery's own account, André tasted the 1936 while it was still in tank, chose the lots, and the wine was bottled in 1939. It was first shown as BV Special Burgundy. After Georges died in 1940, the wine took his name. That bottling is the start of Georges de Latour Private Reserve.

André was a Russian émigré teaching in France when Georges hired him. He had offers from famous European cellars. He and Georges understood each other, and the young California wine industry had room to change. He moved to Napa Valley in 1938 and stayed as lead winemaker until 1971.

He was a winemaker and a careful microbiologist. He built his own lab, microscope included, a rare tool in 1930s Napa. At the winery he tried small-lot fermentation, built a cool room so white wines could ferment cold, and established malolactic fermentation for the reds. In the vineyard he tightened cultivation and pruning and brought European methods onto the bench. His love of Pinot Noir took Beaulieu's planting into Carneros in 1961. In 1947 he opened the Napa Valley Enological Research Laboratory so the whole industry could keep studying. He taught the winemakers at BV, and he taught many of the people who later founded the valley's other houses.

After he left the day-to-day work he spent 17 years as a consulting winemaker, then came back to mark the 50th vintage of this Cabernet. In 1990, at 89, he joined the winery again and worked with winemaker Joel Aiken. Together they studied those 50 historic Private Reserve vintages, put French oak aging in place for the reds, and made a small-lot Pinot Noir called Maestro in André's honor.

The 2022 is the same idea, carried into a vintage of small berries and bright acidity: Rutherford fruit first, a measured share of Petit Verdot, and a long stay in new French oak. The bottle is $140.