Château Ducru-Beaucaillou tasting event with Cathleen Burk-Visscher

Don't miss out on the opportunity to experience this incredible lineup of exquisite wines presented by the incomparable Cathleen Burk-Visscher. Taste the best Bordeaux has to offer with access to event-only pricing.

This tasting event includes 5 world-class wines, cheese & charcuterie, and the opportunity to learn from one of the best in the business. This is a rare opportunity for our market and seats are limited - make plans to attend!

Wednesday, February 2 at our Durham store

Featured wines:

We are hosting this event at our Durham store so we can adequately space attendees at separate tables. If you would like to be seated with another couple, please leave us a note when checking out. 

**Please note that to attend in-person events, we require either proof of vaccination, or a negative Covid test within 48 hours of arrival. Please out to us at contact@thewinefeed.com if you have any questions regarding our COVID protocols.**

Background info:

Château Ducru-Beaucaillou:  For 301 years, since 1720,  six families have nurtured an indelible bond with Château Ducru-Beaucaillou. They are forever captives of this prestigious estate, be they named Desjean, Bergeron, Ducru, Johnston, Desbarat, or Borie. Its families were never short of praise for it. Over the decades, this devotion has managed to overcome all that is accidental or fleeting, as if passion perfected Nature's opus.  Château Ducru-Beaucaillou, second growth, Grand Cru Classe  is one of the iconic sites of the Medoc and owes its name to its "beautiful pebbles" ("beaux Cailloux", in French) that geologists refer to less romantically as Gunzian gravel.   Resident owner Bruno-Eugène Borie has been in charge and has cultivated the lands at Ducru-Beaucaillou since 2003.  His family, beginning with his grandfather, Francis Borie's control in 1942.   In order to accomplish the great work, there are fifty pairs of hands, fifty manual tasks that follow one after another, behind each bottle of Ducru-Beaucaillou. A multicultural, well-organised and united team, on a human scale. A community of minds united around the same values: a deep attachment to the land, to rural tradition, to the craft dimension of the trade, to the beauty of the gesture. Intuition, know-how, refinement: as in Satie’s music, the fewest notes for the greatest possible effect. In the end, it is an accumulation of care and attention to detail that makes a great cuvée.   

Château Ducluzeau, established in 1740, is located in the Listrac-Médoc appellation commune. The property has been in the family of Monique Rochette-Borie, Bruno Borie's mother.  She was raised at Château Ducluzeau  and the estate had been in her family since 1740. My mother’s family are winemakers, one of the oldest in the Central Médoc. It was therefore with some trepidation, and great respect, that I began managing Ducluzeau  in 2003.  My priorities since then have been to make improvements where I can, to contemporise without changing the wine’s true nature or disturbing the purity of the flavours found in the Listrac terroir. And, much as I love hidden gems, my goal is to share the wines of this underestimated region with a wider audience.  Sitting on a gentle rise, at 45 meters (150 feet) above sea level, Listrac is on the limit of the Landes County border. The word Listrac literally means edge, from the French lisière. It overlooks the Medoc peninsula and is only 25 kilometres from the Atlantic. When the wind blows from the west you can smell the ocean, adding a potential touch of iodine to the wine’s flavours.  This is an area I feel paternal about, perhaps because it deserves extra attention and repays it so generously. If it were a person it would be a ribald Gascon Medoc: greedy, joyful and epicurean. The food is simple but spectacular: ceps and chanterelles, poultries and games, stews and confits, venison, woodcocks and wild boar. Ducluzeau’s largely merlot dominated wines are the perfect foil: attractive, generous, rich and full of black cherry and plum flavours.  With an area of 22 hectares, of which 13 are currently planted with vines (between 10,000 and 8,500 vines per hectare). The soil and sub-soil are made up of small gravel aggregate in a siliceous clay matrix.     .

Cathleen Burke Visscher is  the Director of Business, North America, for the eponymous "super second growth" Château Ducru-Beaucaillou in Saint-Julien, Bordeaux. She manages the wines in the portfolio.  She is also the President of a fine wine consultancy, specializing in luxury wines.  Cathleen trained as a chef in Paris receiving a top diploma from La Varenne, Ecole de Cuisine.  She worked in Michelin starred restaurants and specialized in Patisserie.  Cathleen holds the W.S.E.T Advnaced Certificiate, is | EVP, Co-Chair Wine Committee and past President of the Wine & Food Society, New York  and previously S.V.P. Director of Marketing, S.V.P. Director of Corporate Development, Executive Team Member,  Kobrand Wine & Spirits. Additionally she is a Dame Officier Ordre de Coteaux de Champagne, Wine Educator & Lecturer named an Ad Age Top 100 Marketer.