Weekly Tasting Report (MAY 3-9, 2021): a Bordeaux like no other from Haut-Bailly, South Africa scores big with a sublime Vin de Constance, and Hobbs’ ‘vibrant’ New York riesling

James has found that more and more whites are being made in Saint-Emilion, which is interesting because it's traditionally a red wine appellation.

Another fantastic Bordeaux 2020 barrel sample leads the pack of the just over 400 wines my team and I reviewed last week, which included bottles from just about every key European country as well as Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, South America and China.

The top Bordeaux 2020 was from the famed estate of Chateau Haut-Bailly, located on the outskirts of France’s sixth-biggest metropolitan area in the appellation of Pessac-Leognan. Its greatness highlights the fantastic quality of the vintage but also the high quality of wines from the appellation. It could be my favorite region for 2020. A number of other estates in the appellation have made some incredible quality wines, including Haut-Brion, Smith-Haut-Lafitte, La Mission Haut-Brion, Pape Clement, and Les Carmes-Haut-Brion.

“We were able to harvest beautiful merlot but also exceptional cabernet with even a higher class,” said Veronique Sanders, the head of Chateau Haut-Bailly. “Our terroir with clay was able to handle the drought and all the extreme weather conditions.”

I wrote in the last few weeks that the 2020 vintage seemed to be a merlot vintage. But great terroirs have made incredible wines as well, according to the almost 1,000 barrel samples I have tasted from the vintage. Perhaps merlot had a slight edge, but the small berries and thick skins of the cabernet sauvignon certainly delivered excellent and structured reds.

How does Sanders compare 2020 to 2018 and 2019? “The 2020 is a beautiful symbiosis of the two vintages,” she said. “It has the concentration and depth of the 2018 but you have the charm and incredible elegance of the 2019. It has what I call the ‘diabolic’ elegance of the 2019. It is a grand finale to the three vintages.”

Sanders described how 2020 was a unique opportunity to always be on her property with her team and stay focused on the vintage. “We had 20/20 vision on the vintage,” she said. “We were happy to be focused on 2020 instead of something else [like COVID].”

She said that they were at the winery and in the vineyards continuously from the start of the year ”and we had to reinvent everything, every day” in order to cope with some of the issues they faced.

“The fact that you had a new challenge every day and it could be climatic and it could be sanitary," she said. “We had to keep our team working here and that could be a challenge. Imagine what it was like when France was in lockdown in May and April!”

Sanders said that they had to hire an extra 50 people to work in the vineyards last spring, including some from outside the wine sector, but that those employees enjoyed the work and being out in the natural environment. “Nature was the saving grace for us and it helped us move,” 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.”

Other top Bordeaux 2020s in this tasting include Canon, Lynch-Bages, Pontet Canet and Vieux Chateau Certan.

Besides the almost 200 Bordeaux barrel samples in this report, I also rated a barrel sample of what may be South Africa’s most famous wine: Klein Constantia Vin de Constance Natural Sweet Wine 2018. It could be the greatest Vin de Constance I have ever tasted in my career, with its unique balance of sweetness and savoriness and an almost salty undertone.

I had a long Zoom call with the general manager and winemaker of Klein Constantia, and they admitted that they have been fine-tuning their methods in their vineyards and winery to make a much more balanced and energetic white. They both agreed that the 2018 was the first wine under their helm to illustrate the quality and stylish path for coming vintages of high-quality Vin de Constance, emphasizing the unique terroir and winemaking. I also tasted four earlier vintages, including  2017, 2016, 2015 and 2012, which are included in this report.

Another wine to note here is the new release of Antinori’s fabulous white from Umbria: Cervaro della Sala 2019. It’s a fantastic wine and a step up from the 2018. Antinori’s general manager and head winemaker, Renzo Cotarella, calls it “more balanced and a little bit more tropical” than past recent vintages.

The first release from winemaker Paul Hobbs from his family’s vineyards in Seneca Lake in New York is also an interesting tasting note to check out. Senior Editor Stuart Pigott called the 2019 dry riesling “precise and vibrant” and an outstanding wine from the brothers Paul and David Hobbs.

Meanwhile, Chile continues to be a substantial part of the report, with about 120 different wines reviewed. The country has a consistently outstanding quality level across the board thanks to a string of excellent vintages from 2017 to 2020.

Overall, we rated 377 wines 90 points or more last week. So there are lots of outstanding wines to check out.

– James Suckling, editor in chief

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’.