88 points,

Robert Parker's Wine Advocate, January 1995

Two recent bottles of the 1969 have been fully mature, but they exhibited no signs of losing their fruit and falling apart. The wine reveals a healthy dark ruby color with light amber at the edge. The nose offers straightforward but intense aromas of sweet oak and jammy fruit. It is medium to full-bodied, with good freshness, a mouthfilling chewiness as well as moderate tannin in the finish. This well-structured, excellent B.V. Private Reserve should continue to drink well for another decade. It is less spectacular, but also less fragile than the super-ripe 1970.

88 points,

Robert Parker's Wine Advocate, January 1992

Last Tasted 3/92 At first, this wine appeared to be sterile, innocuous, and uninteresting, but as if someone magically said the right words, the bouquet began to develop, revealing spicy, cedary, herb, and berry aromas. In the mouth, the wine is medium-bodied, without the glycerin, fat, alcohol, and ripeness of either its predecessor or successor. Nevertheless, I admired this wine's graceful personality and well-balanced feel. Drink it over the next 10 years.

88 points,

Wine Spectator, February 2000

Once a classic wine but fading slightly, with a good dark ruby color and aromas of mushroom, leaf, fruit, herb and cedar. Medium-bodied, with similar character on the palate.--Georges de Latour Private Reserve vertical. Drink now. 10,700 cases made. –JS

About Winery

When Georges and Fernande de Latour purchased a four-acre parcel of land with a hous in Rutherford in May 1900, the new century had barely begun. Georges de Latour decided to surprise his wife with a wonderful piece of property in the heart of Napa Valley in a small town called Rutherford.

When Fernande saw the land she exclaimed "Quel Beaulieu" which in French means beautiful place, thus Beaulieu Vineyard was named. This new venture for the de Latours was timely. In fact, Napa Valley had been suffering because of a vine-destroying louse called phylloxera. Thanks to Georges' knowledge of the cure for phylloxera - resistant rootstock that he would import by the millions over the next decade - prosperity would return to Napa Valley, and Georges would soon be a most influential and well-known figure.

As the St. Helena Star wrote in May, 1911: "When it comes to quality, California is greatly indebted to Mr. G. de Latour, of Rutherford, who for some years has imported hundreds of thousands of the choicest French grafted vines, which have been planted in all the important vineyards of the State."

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