Weekly Tasting Report (Apr 12-18, 2021): 2020 confirmed as Bordeaux’s third great year in a row

After tasting more than 400 barrel samples from the 2020 vintage, I can 100% confirm that it is another great year for Bordeaux. The 2020 vintage marks a rare trilogy of excellent vintages that produced wines at the same or very close quality level across the board from great named chateaux to lesser-known estates.

“I can’t think of a trilogy of vintages for Bordeaux like 2018, 2019 and 2020,” said Christian Seely, managing director of Axa Millesimes, which owns Pichon Baron and Suduiraut, among other estates in Bordeaux. “The quality levels are almost identical but the wines are indeed different in style depending on the appellations and wineries. One could argue there was 1988, 1989 and 1990, but the 1988 was not at the same quality level as 1989 and 1990. But after or before these three, a trio of top quality vintages does not exist in Bordeaux.”

He added that the 2020 vintage “is somewhere between 2018 and 2019 but in our case it is closer to the 2019 with the tannins.”

I wholeheartedly agree. I am also starting to see a pattern in my tastings of 2020 barrel samples that the Medoc reds are closer in character to the 2019 vintage with more linear and finer tannins and precise and pure cabernet fruit character while the Right Bank, particularly Pomerol and St.Emilion, is more like 2018 with reds that have more flamboyant fruit and creamier and more densely ripe tannins.

James discusses the 2020 vintage for white wines with Christian Seely, managing director of Axa Millesimes, which owns Pichon Baron and Suduiraut.

Philippe Bascaules of Chateau Margaux explains the small grapes, low yields and refinement and power of 2020.

Some winemakers such as Philippe Bascaules of Chateau Margaux noted that the grapes were slightly smaller in 2020 than 2019. “So we knew that the yields would be slightly lower in 2020,” he said, adding that the flowering was two weeks early. But the big event in grape growing in 2020 was the very dry summer. “We had intense drought for two months. I don’t think we have ever seen that. For 50 days, we had no rain.”

His wine, the 2020 Chateau Margaux, was the best en primeur sample I have tasted so far. I describe it as a “wonderful combination of refinement and power.”

Bascaules also spoke of the intense rains in the first part of the year that gave good ground water to many vineyards especially those with clay and limestone. There was more precipitation in 2020 compared to 2018 and 2019 during this period. It is worth noting how this is the third year in a row with similar weather patterns: wet and mild winters, cool springs with pressure from mildew, and then drought conditions during the summer until the harvest. You have to wonder if this is the new norm for Bordeaux, a result of global warming.

The hot and dry weather at the end of the grape growing cycle made it difficult to make sweet wines since noble rot (botrytis) doesn’t develop very easily. “The 2020 vintage was a difficult year for Sauternes because the end of the growing season and the harvest was very dry. Very little botrytis developed,” said Seely, who added that they had to wait until almost mid-October for the botrytis to develop properly on the grapes.

“We waited until the 9th of October for the final picking and the botrytis was magnificent,” said Seely, whose 2020 Sudiruaut is intense and spicy from the botrytis. It’s pure semillon this year instead of a blend of the grape with sauvignon blanc.

“It was very pure botrytis on very ripe Semillon grapes,” he added. “We had another picking between the 2nd and 6th of November and again magnificent botrytis … it might not have happened if we did not wait. We think of this as a great and most unexpected vintage of Chateau Sudiruaut.”

On top of the Bordeaux barrel samples, our tastings of Chilean wines continues with about 120 different wines rated so far. We are impressed with the balance and freshness of the wines. And winemakers are calling the 2020 vintage another excellent year following 2019, 2018 and 2018. And, believe it or not, the 2021 vintage looks to be another winner.

“We are in the middle of one of the harvests of the decade,” said Philippe Roulet, the head of Los Vascos. He said the weather was a little wet and cool at the beginning of the vintage but by March it had turned to dream conditions. “It’s a very late harvest,” he said.

We also tasted more than 110 wines from Italy. Some 2017 single-vineyard Barolos from Roberto Voerzio took my breath away, and a late released 2016 single-vineyard Chianti Classico Gran Selezione from the Mazzei family called Ipsus, was super quality for the second year in a row. The quality would give many Brunellos at the same level a run for their money.

Senior Editor Stuart Pigott continued to have his hand on the pulse of some of Germany’s best producers with Gunter Steinmetz in the Mosel racking up a superb rating as well as Matthias Muller in the Mittelrhein. Check them out below.

- James Suckling, editor

The list of wines below are bottles tasted and rated in the previous week by James and other tasters at JamesSuckling.com. They include many latest releases not yet in the market, but entering soon. Some will be included in upcoming tasting reports. 

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

To find the Bordeaux 2020 en primeur notes, for example, sort by country and scroll down to 'France'.