At the end of March, James and I should have made our annual pilgrimage to Bordeaux for an intensive week of Châteaux visits with the Union des Grands Crus (UGC) to taste the 2020 vintage from barrel.
Unable to travel once again due to Covid-19 restrictions, we have been working relentlessly with the leading Châteaux and Négociants to receive samples at Bon Coeur HQ in preparation for our virtual tasting sessions, which began on Wednesday 21st April with Château Angélus. Stéphanie de Boüard-Rival has described 2020 as "sublime" and a "rich, complete and complex vintage". When asked if it could be compared to any other vintage, we were told it "has the DNA of 2001 from the Right Bank."
Analysing the wines at Bon Coeur HQ, James, Amy and I thought both Carillon d'Angélus and Angélus showed impressive harmony, balance, and purity. Although it was our first tasting, if this is a sign of things to come then it looks like we have another decent vintage in the barrel - we will continue to keep you updated throughout the campaign, watch this space…
As our virtual campaign gets underway, what can we expect from the 2020 vintage?
In his in-depth report: Bordeaux 2020 yields – quality over quantity?, Gavin Quinney commented that “2020 has ended up being a really good but variable year with wines of outstanding potential for many Bordeaux estates”. Once again though, low yields were a common theme throughout many appellations and Quinney states this is “due to a combination of factors… first, the pressure of mildew early on in the growing season, second, from 18 June to 11 August, there were 54 days of drought and third, and this was a peculiarity for Bordeaux in 2020, it was an early harvest and a heatwave in mid-September.”
As if harvest time isn’t stressful enough, many estates also had to handle Covid protocols and keep staff safe as recounted in Wine Spectators’ article: The Social Distance Vintage 2020 Harvest in Bordeaux. Château Phélan Ségur General Manager, Véronique Dausse, told Suzanne Mustacich it was like a “military organization to protect everyone… masks compulsory for everybody inside and outside. Disinfection of baskets and scissors several times a day. Everything took more time…"
Damien Barton Sartorius (whose family own Château Léoville Barton and Château Langoa Barton in Saint-Julien) concurred saying “if one person in the team got COVID, then the whole team would have been taken out… and then how do you pick the grapes?" Thankfully, the harvest was completed without any major issues, pickers were kept safe and the majority of Châteaux owners seem happy with what they have produced.
Fast-forward a few months and prominent critics have been receiving samples worldwide in the last few weeks. James Suckling is the first to give an early opinion after tasting 400+ wines in Hong Kong proclaiming “the 2020 vintage marks a rare trilogy of excellent vintages...” adding that “the Médoc reds are closer in character to the 2019 vintage with more linear and finer tannins… while the Right Bank, particularly Pomerol and Saint-Émilion, is more like 2018 with reds that have more flamboyant fruit and creamier and more densely ripe tannins.”
Christian Seely, Managing Director of AXA Millésimes (owners of Château Pichon Baron in Pauillac, and Château Suduiraut in Sauternes) agrees explaining in his virtual tasting with Suckling that 2020 “is somewhere between 2018 and 2019”, adding that “the quality levels are almost identical, but the wines are indeed different in style depending on appellations and wineries.”
Furthermore the iconic consultant-oenologist, Michel Rolland, also noted in an interviews with Suckling that in 2020 the wines have “more freshness, more tension, more balance… and that 2018, 2019 and 2020 make a ‘trilogy' (of high–quality vintages).”
And now the big question remains… price? Amidst the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Bordelais were sensitive to the worldwide economic uncertainty, as well as Fine Wine market sentiment and as a result many estates offered 2019 En Primeur at an attractive reduction (ca. 20% on the 2018 releases) to entice buyers… and it worked; heightened interest provided the campaign with a much-needed boost, and overall it was a success for everyone from Châteaux to Négociants, as well as the final consumer.
Nevertheless word on the grapevine is price increases are anticpated this year…quelle surprise! Earlier this month Colin Hay interviewed a prominent UK Merchant in his article: Bordeaux en primeur 2020: What to expect, who proclaimed “some in Bordeaux seem to be of the opinion that customers got too good a deal in 2019. That is nonsense… We would hope that châteaux would realise the positive impact this had on broader interest in Bordeaux and consider that in their release pricing; we nevertheless feel that release pricing is likely to be higher and therefore it is simply a case of how much higher in terms of whether the stronger Sterling mitigates that fully or only partially.”
With more virtual tastings scheduled over the next month, we await the remaining samples with much anticipation and we are ready to taste, glasses at the ready - as they say, the show must go on… on y va!
The Bordeaux 2020 En Primeur campaign is now live - for all the latest news and daily updates, please read our release diary.
