Bordeaux 2020 Tasting Report: Brilliance From a Bleak Year

It almost seems hard to remember what took place in 2020 in Bordeaux after all that’s happened over the last three years as well as the recent excitement over 2022 en primeur, or futures. Yet if you buy or drink a bottle of top-rated 2020 Bordeaux, you are going to be more than happy. In fact, you most likely will be elated.

The hot and dry vintage produced fantastic wines showing richness in fruit and warm and succulent flavors, yet they maintain freshness, brightness and energy. It was the fourth recent vintage in Bordeaux (2018, 2019, 2020 and 2022) with extremely dry and hot weather conditions during the summer, especially in July. And so many wineries harvested their grapes early. Some white grapes were picked in mid-August, perhaps the earliest harvest ever.

“No one takes holidays in August,” said Nicolas Audebert, the head of Chateau Canon and Rauzan-Segla. “Now they take it in July.” He said they knew the harvest was going to be early and that they “adapted the vines for that and early harvest was planned.”

Indeed, the best vineyards of Bordeaux are adapting to these extreme weather conditions – from blistering hot and dry days to fierce frosts and mildew. Many continue to produce exceptional grapes in such years, including the four vintages mentioned above. This sets a new benchmark for viticulture and wine quality in Bordeaux today and for the future.

“2020 is the great classic of today,” said Eric Kohler, the technical director of Chateau Lafite-Rothschild.  “You feel the power, the future, and the great classic, but you don’t feel the potential [even through it is there]. It’s slightly hidden. Wines are changing today. You could easily see the potential with classics such as the 2010s, the 2005s and the 2000s. They were like that. But now it’s different.”

Indeed, there’s a balance and harmony today in the wines of Bordeaux even though they are rich and structured with lots of tannins. And it’s not just great names like Lafite. Most of the top wines of today are much less in your face with masses of fruit, wood, tannins and alcohol. It’s the same in most parts of the world. But it means even more to me personally after professionally tasting in Bordeaux since 1983.

JamesSuckling.com rated almost 2,000 Bordeaux from the 2020 vintage and the quality is fantastic. The best reds show a combination of finesse, structure and gravity, with well-judged opulence. This comes from precision and excellence in viticulture, where wineries try to conserve the quality of their grapes through various techniques such as shading fruit with large leaf canopies as well as meticulous winemaking, with producers moving away from overly extracted and overly wooded reds to softer and less contrived methodology in their cellars.

“This is hyperbalanced and direct,” Helen Genin, the technical director of Chateau Latour, said of 2020. “It has acidity and intensity. I really like it. I am really surprised how it keeps to itself and doesn’t show the character of a sunny vintage. I think there is an adaptation of the vines and the way we extracted. We have alcohol only at 13 percent and the wood we use too. It’s not overripe. Great wines need to be great but also typical.”

THE CLIMATE CHALLENGE

Winemakers in Bordeaux experienced mild and wet winters and springs, frosts and diseases such as mildew in 2018, 2019 and 2020. Nevertheless, they became accustomed to these weather patterns, and the early growth of vineyards helped them avoid the negative effects of rains in late September or October. Although it's too early to predict if this cycle will persist, they all agree that global warming is a reality and temperatures are rising. Similar weather patterns persisted in 2022.

Jean-Philippe Delmas, the managing director of Chateau Haut-Brion and La Mission, pointed out that the earlier growing process has increased the risk of frost, requiring greater vigilance against mildew due to earlier starts and rainfall. Furthermore, drought periods have become more common after spring, posing a challenge for winemakers. Delmas added that the climate has changed dramatically over the last 20 years, and they now need to focus on reducing the effects of sunlight instead of enhancing them.

“The vines adapted, and we adapted,” said Chateau la Conseillante winemaker Muriel Cazaux. “It’s the way we work in the vineyard – the cover crop, the transpiration, not de-leafing. It is a combination of many parameters. After 2016, 2018 and 2019, we didn’t want to push the extraction too much. It is a combination of work of the team and Mother Nature.”

She also emphasized how 2020 was grown, harvested and produced during the height of Covid, and that it was very difficult at times with all the social-distancing rules and other almost draconian rules for public health during the pandemic in France. “We were all there in the vineyard,” she said. “The accountant and the receptionist, even my kids were in the vineyard. It was a fantastic vintage because of the teamwork.”

Personally, I remember tasting 2020 Bordeaux barrel samples during lockdown in Hong Kong in Spring 2021 and hearing the stories about the vintage from dozens of winemakers over Zoom. They all seemed so far away. However, the young wines for the most part showed beautiful quality despite being barrel samples and flown halfway around the world. I was equally impressed with the stories of courage and perseverance in making the wines in 2020.  It gives a special context to the bottles now available on the market.

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“You had a new challenge every day, and it could be climatic, and it could be sanitary,” Veronique Sanders, who heads Chaeau Haut-Bailly, told me on May 6, 2021. “We had to keep our team working and that could be a challenge. Imagine what it was like when France was in lockdown in May and April!”

She added that Haut-Bailly had to recruit an additional 50 workers for their vineyards, some of whom were from outside the wine industry. Despite this, the workers found their tasks enjoyable, and they appreciated being in the natural environment of the winery and the vineyard. She said that her workers were proud of their achievements, and the results of their efforts were impressive.

"Nature was our saving grace during that time and helped us push through,” she said. “It was fantastic to have it and the result is fabulous. The people who were there [in their vineyards], we owe them a lot, but they also enjoyed it.”

Most of the 2020s we tasted over the last five months were very enjoyable for young wines, and they were very high quality. This is something to consider if you are buying some. So many of the wines give pleasure for a young wine but the best will age for decades ahead. In fact, we rated about 1,040 2020s at 90 points or more. It was about the same with the 2019 and 2018 vintages. We scored nearly 180 of the 2020s at 95 points or higher, as we did for about 170 of the 2019s and about 150 of the 2018s. There were 10 perfect-scoring wines in 2020, eight in 2019 and seven in 2018.

DUELING VINTAGES

It's very hard to say which vintage is better just looking at the statistics. The 2020 vintage had the most wines in all categories, but we rated substantially more wines from the vintage. My personal preference is for either 2019 or 2020. I think that Bordeaux winemakers have become more accustomed to the hot and dry summer grape-growing season and have honed their skills on all levels. The top wines are slightly less robust in those two years compared with 2018.

“2018 is easy to love but it’s not the true identity,” said Jean-Emmanuel Danjoy, the technical director of Mouton-Rothschild as well as the other wineries in the family portfolio, such as Clerc Milon and d’Armailhac. “2019 is much more modern and opulent. They have a yummy quality with flesh and greatness. The 2020s are more subdued. It’s a classic.”

His Mouton was one of our 10 perfect wines, which also included Figeac, La Fleur-Petrus, Lafite-Rothschild, Le Pin, Margaux, Pavie, Petrus, Trotanoy and Pavillon Blanc du Château Margaux Bordeaux Blanc. You probably aren’t surprised to see most of these names, with the exception of Figeac, which made one of its best wines ever.

“The identity of Figeac is in the bottle,” said Frederic Faye, the technical director of Figeac. “We learned a lot in 2018 and 2019 and now have changed some of our viticultural methods and the way we extract. We have cooler temperatures during fermentation and extract less.”

The white of Margaux is equally sensational and shows the winemaking prowess of the estate for this pure sauvignon blanc, with its electric acidity and focus. Also, keep in mind that 2020 could be better than 2022 for wineries such as Pavie and Margaux red following my barrel tasting a few weeks ago in Bordeaux.

“Your job was to understand the typicity of the vintage,” said Oliver Berrouet, the winemaker for Chateau Petrus. “We knew that we had outstanding potential for the structure, so we knew that we didn’t have to push in that direction during the vinification. Our goal was to find the right balance between the fleshy, aromatic side of the wine and the structure.

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“We didn’t want the wine to be too powerful or it would dominate the aromatic side of the wine," Berrouet added. "We have an amazing balance with the 2020.”

Prices for the best wines of 2020 are going to cost you a small fortune, but they are not much different than any other top Bordeaux in recent vintages.

Figeac is one of the least expensive at just under $300 a bottle while rare bottles like Le Pin or Petrus cost about $4,000 and $8,000, respectively.

Luckily for most of us, literally hundreds of bottles from the 2020 vintage are in the $30 to $60 range and they show the richness yet freshness and aromatic beauty of this outstanding year. Look for wines with ratings from 91 points to 95 points in this report to find them.

Regardless of the price, it will be memorable to drink bottles of 2020 Bordeaux in the future to reminisce about what really did just happen in the vintage and in all of our lives.

– James Suckling, Editor/Chairman

Note: You can sort the wines below by vintage, score and alphabetically by winery name. You can also search for specific wines in the search bar.