Pomerol 2020 in bottle: overview plus top-scoring wines

Characterful, structured, opulent and balanced wines comprise the best from Pomerol in 2020. The deep clay and gravel with clay terroirs worked best in the hot and dry conditions that saw 55 days with no rain.

Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores for the top Pomerol 2020 in-bottle wines

Average yields in Pomerol in 2020 were 39.8hl/ha, above 2018 at 36.2hl/ha but lower than 2019 at 43hl/ha with a 10-year-average at 37.7hl/ha.

As an appellation with smaller estates, and correspondingly smaller teams, certainly compared to the Medoc, Pomerol was the least affected by the disruption caused by lockdowns and the heath crisis in 2020. Particularly for properties who maintain the same vineyard teams all year long such as Lafleur and L’Eglise Clinet who ‘spent an extreme amount of time in the vineyards’ as Omri Ram winemaker at Château Lafleur put it.

‘We had time to work. On the one hand it was good as we don’t depend on anyone – we have our own team of 23 people, full time, so it was tranquil’.

For Ram, 2020 has ‘a complexity that we already learnt and came to know with 2016 and 2018. It was same type of season – hybrid – half and half with an extremely rainy start, the most rainy spring we can remember here, then an extreme switch to drought and heat by June.

‘2016 and 2018 taught us that weather and the climate are changing and that a season could start one way and then completely flip. In 2016 we managed it well while trying to understand what was happening, in 2018 we knew how to work with the conditions and in 2020 we managed to anticipate it.’

In terms of vintage comparisons, Ram said: ‘2018 and 2020 come from turbulent ‘childhoods’ – with weather switching at least three times during the growing season, you can clearly feel that in the young wines. 2019 came from linear and coherent childhood weather-wise and is therefore more easy to understand. 2020 is more difficult to read when young, but it doesn’t mean they won’t surpass their potential.’

For Eric Monneret, director at La Pointe, 2020 was a ‘dream vintage’ with ‘quality and volume’. 2020 is a perfect sum of 2018 and 2019 because it’s as supple and charming as 2018 but with more energy and more freshness, and it has the elegance and tension of 2019.

‘For me, 2020 has mass appeal – you definitely have palates for 2018 and palates for 2019, which is always a good debate, but 2020 can satisfy everyone with its generosity and charm.

Winemaker Juliette Couderc, at Château L’Évangile (in organic conversion during 2020) noted the difference in aromatics and tannins for the same grape on different soils. ‘The aromatics were the same for Merlot on different soils but the tannins were completely different. With blue clay we got soft and silky, chewy tannins whereas on gravel they was more straight showing that the Merlot suffered some stress.

‘For us it was important to harvest at the right time to get fresh fruits, and in terms of tannins we had to managed the extraction carefully.

The weekend of the 12-13 was really key for us, a big heatwave was forecast (above 32-33 degrees celsius) so the question was to pick before or after? We decided to pick 80% of the fruit from plateau before the weekend to keep freshness. We know what we can lose in just a few days – especially for Merlot, it’s such a fine line, then straight after Cabernet Franc just arrived – there was no window between the grapes.’

For Olivier Berrouet at Pétrus, it was the ‘aromatic expression, the balance and the density’ that impressed the most. ‘Everything was in harmony and giving pleasure from day one’, he said.

Top 8 Pomerol 2020 wines:

Château Trotanoy, 100 points

Petrus, 100 points

Château La Fleur-Pétrus, 99 points

Château L’Évangile, 98 points

Château La Conseillante, 98 points

Château Lafleur Pomerol, 98 points

Vieux Château Certan, 98 points

Château Le Pin Pomerol, 97 points

SCORE TABLE: top-scoring 349 wines with 92 points or above

Individual appellation analysis and top-scoring wines

St-Estèphe 2020 | Margaux 2020 | St-Julien 2020| Pauillac 2020 | Pessac & Graves 2020 | St-Emilion 2020 |

See all Bordeaux 2020 in-bottle wines in score order

See tasting notes and scores for the top Pomerol 2020 in-bottle wines

The following wines all scored 94 points or above. 

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