Chateau Leoville Las Cases· Saint-Julien

A second growth on paper, a first growth in everything but the 1855 paperwork, Léoville Las Cases has long been the great "super second" of the Médoc, and the heart of why is the Grand Clos, the walled enclosure of deep Gunzian gravel pressing right up against the boundary of Château Latour.

Jean-Hubert Delon farms it with a severity that defines the house. This is not a wine that flatters in youth; it is built austere and monumental, dense with Cabernet, and it asks for time the way few wines in Saint-Julien dare to. The 2020 will need fifteen years before it begins to unwind, and rushing it would be a waste of the bottle.

I sell Las Cases to collectors, not to weeknight drinkers. Buy it, lay it down, and let the wine become what it was always built to be.