Bordeaux 2020: Southwold Tasting Report

2020 is a remarkably consistent, extremely high quality, year for red Bordeaux. The wines are much more classical – think dry, savoury, structured, brisk – than in many recent years, yet they are also informed by the best of contemporary viticulture and winemaking techniques.

I am sure someone else has already said it but I have started to think of 2020 as a neo-classical vintage. Fans of traditional Bordeaux are going to find plenty to enjoy, at all price points, but these are wines born of thoroughly modern methods.

• If I were looking for classically-styled, age-worthy, mid-tier reds to cellar and drink in 7-10 years’ time, I would be filling my boots with the likes of Chateaux Gloria and Chasse Spleen.
• As someone whose son was born in 2020, I am thrilled to have large formats of Chateaux Grand Puy Lacoste and Gazin with which to kickstart his cellar.
• Those who love the wines of Bordeaux’s right bank will find masses of excitement in Saint Emilion as the commune continues its progress into a new golden age of quality.
• The 1^st growths and equivalents provided some of the most impressive tasting, and tightly-clustered ratings, we have ever seen at Southwold.

Bordeaux released its 2020 vintage during lockdown. We were unable to travel to France for the usual barrel tastings. Instead, I first experienced the wines sat around my dining table – with socially-distanced friends and colleagues – tasting samples that had been prepared in Bordeaux and shipped to me in the UK, arriving on my driveway arriving on a pallet!

Tasting barrel samples remotely has to be about the worst way to try and gain an understanding of a new vintage, so I have never really felt I had a good overview of 2020. Following that first introduction to the vintage, there was a nice sense of symmetry tasting the 2020s from bottle, around tables with my friends from the Southwold group. The key difference being that tasting finished wines left me much more confident that I have a good read on Bordeaux 2020.

This was not an easy tasting, I found it hard going at times. When we tasted the 2010s it was alcohol that wore us down. That is not the case in 2020, where the majority of wines are relatively modest in alcohol. Ex-chateau samples do not always wear the wine’s official label – for example, the Latour that has not yet been commercially released – so no ABV is listed. Of the wines showing alcohol levels on the label, the majority seemed to be 13.5%, with some at 13%, on the Medoc and only the outliers topping 14%. The top right bank wines, and those from the warmer microclimates of Pessac, tended to be a degree higher. In 2020 it is the structure and tannin build up, potentially coupled with elevated acidity, that I found tiring.

Of course, tasting young Bordeaux is not meant to be easy and very few of these wines are made to be approachable just four years from vintage. I am not concerned that it was a challenging tasting, because many of the wines were simply screaming out for age and that is a big part of the point of smart Bordeaux for most of us. Rather, it is a notable contrast with the generosity of some recent vintages; here we have a year with a much more classical structure.

2020 is not the year for easy-going, richly textured, sensuous Bordeaux reds. There is no lack of ripeness, and very few instances of green or herbaceous characters, but the fruit is sheathed in significant tannin and accented by quite elevated acidity

The combination of crisp acid and crunchy tannins led me to describe many wines as brisk. In most cases the wines’ profiles are solidly savoury and dry. Whilst there are high levels of intensity, many wines feel compact and tightly coiled.

In some ways, I wonder if there are parallels with how the 2005s tasted at a similar age but, whilst both are very structured vintages, I suspect the ripeness of 2005 has always been a little more marked. At other times I am quite taken by the idea that 2020 has captured something of the essence of Bordeaux’s Atlantic personality in combination with the ripeness delivered by today’s climatic conditions.

I have made a big deal of the consistency of 2020, and I stand by that as many of the scores for each flight were tightly clustered, but the bigger picture is a bit more complex.

During one of the post-tasting discussions, a few tasters commented that 2020 is not a year to buy lots of second wines. Of course, exceptions exist: I loved Alter Ego and think both Segla and Pichon Comtesse Reserve offer compelling value for money. However, there are plenty more examples to suggest you approach second wines with a degree of caution in 2020.

Why might this be? If the team at Chateau xx produced an admirable Grand Vin, what might have caused issues for the Deuxieme Vin?

We can only theorise, but it may be a consequence of Covid-19. 2020 was not an easy vintage and required plenty of work in the vineyards.

To start to understand this, consider the harvest. In order to pick grapes at the optimum moment, you need a high degree of precision in choosing the harvest date and then the ability to pick the grapes at the correct speed: either as fast as possible to capture them at just the right moment, or over a period of time so you can work block-by-block based on different ripening times within your vineyard.

With lock down restrictions in place, labour was a significant problem in Bordeaux in 2020. Particularly when you consider that many chateaux rely on foreign workers, often from eastern Europe or even central America, to pick their fruit. The same teams may reassemble each year, but they frequently travel from overseas and are often itinerant workers, following harvest seasons around different countries and regions. It is therefore plausible that, unable to recruit the usual harvest force, estate manager chose to concentrate on maximising the potential of their Grands Vins and the second wines suffered as a result.

Saint Emilion

Each year the wines of Saint Emilion move further and further from the shadow of the super-charged bodybuilder wines of their past. Over extraction, raisined fruit and astringent tannins are now only shown in a distinct minority of wines and the hallmarks of ‘modernist’ Bordeaux now feel decidedly old fashioned. Red fruit, fragrance and elegance are now the order of the day.

Chateau Belair Monange was my favourite Saint Emilion and rivalled Trotanoy as my pick of the right bank. It leads my Top Five with 96/100. Taking up the other four spots, each with 95/100 we have:

• Chateau Canon
• Chateau Cheval Blanc
• A surprisingly brilliant Chateau La Dominique
• Chateau Trolong Mondot

Pomerol

This year I did not find a clear quality distinction between Saint Emilion and Pomerol; both fielded outstanding wines. What Pomerol did demonstrate, though, was 2020’s combination of consistency and quality.

Of over 30 Pomerol wines (plus ringers) in the tasting, I rated 11 94/100 or higher. What’s more one of the ringers – Les Cruzelles, from Lalande de Pomerol – is in that group. With 94/100, under blind conditions, I rated Les Cruzelles on a level with Le Pin and ahead of La Conseillante, L’Evangile and Le Gay. It is not going to last for ever but, even if my scoring is a ways off, this has to be one of the bargains of the vintage.

With its crescendo of mineral, saline, chalky structure, Chateau Trotanoy was my stand out Pomerol with 96/100, although the group preferred L’Eglise Clinet. I am unable to offer a Top Five from Pomerol as six wines got 95/100:

• L’Eglise Clinet
• Gazin
• La Fleur Petrus
• Lafleur
• Vieux Chateau Certan
• La Violette