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Anson: Bordeaux 2020 harvest – An insider guide

Jane Anson reports on how the Bordeaux 2020 vintage is shaping up, with exclusive analysis and commentary plus month-by-month detail on the growing season and how estates have dealt with the impact of Covid-19.

The Bordeaux 2020 harvest and growing season are an exercise in perspective.

We saw a rainy early season, intense summer drought, heat spikes in early September and late rains during harvest. All of this would have been challenging enough without also contending with Covid-19 related special measures, such as:

  • lockdown during the early part of the season
  • new sanitary protocols once everything opened back up again
  • new harvest teams to retrain when the usual ones were not able to make it
  • new ways of making harvesters feel welcome when the huge shared lunches and suppers were no longer possible

And through it all the constant feeling of gratitude that the vines continued unperturbed by wider upheaval, and that come harvest time grapes were arriving to the cellars ripe, healthy and (relatively) abundant.


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