2026 BDX 2016 Retrospective Petit Chateau Event

Ten years after the celebrated 2016 vintage, we’re going back to Bordeaux to see how the region’s petit châteaux are showing with a decade of bottle age. We’ve assembled a selection of standout wines from both the Left and Right Bank—estates that offer the pedigree, precision, and aging potential Bordeaux collectors look for, without the First Growth price tag.

2016 was a vintage defined less by sheer power than by precision. After an extraordinarily wet spring, Bordeaux experienced a remarkably long, dry growing season, allowing the grapes to ripen slowly and evenly while retaining freshness. The result was a vintage of unusual balance: deep, concentrated fruit supported by fine-grained tannins and the kind of acidity that gives great Bordeaux its longevity.

A decade on, this is where the vintage gets particularly interesting. The wines have had enough time to shed their youthful edges and begin revealing the complexity that made 2016 so compelling from the start, while many still have years—if not decades—of life ahead. Neal Martin has called 2016 a potential benchmark for Bordeaux and, looking back now at ten years, the vintage is increasingly making good on that promise.

The Wines

2016 Château Potensac Médoc

2016 Château Chasse-Spleen Moulis-en-Médoc

2016 Château Le Bosq Saint-Estèphe

2016 Château Poujeaux Moulis-en-Médoc