Bordeaux 2020 wines: our en primeur verdict

Bordeaux 2020 en primeur overall rating: 4/5

The same as 2018, but lower than 2019 and 2016.

Bordeaux 2020 en primeur: the wines

I tasted around 800 wines in total, giving around 10% a score of 95 points or over, including five at 98-100.

Background

For the second year running, the blocks to international travel reset en primeur, although châteaux were far more prepared this time around. Château Pichon Baron alone sent out around 800 samples in WIT tubes, and the UGC held 330 tasting sessions in cities around the world.

However, the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic has been present during the entire season for Bordeaux 2020.

The first nationwide French lockdown began as buds were breaking on 17 March through to 11 May. At first, it was unclear whether there would be special dispensations for agricultural workers, and some estates kept their teams at home until official word came (around one week later).

Others just kept going with workers out in the vines. ‘The growth cycle was early and abundant,’ said Véronique Sanders at Château Haut-Bailly, ‘and if we hadn’t, it would have been too late to manage a few weeks later’. The hashtag #lavignenattendpas (#vinesdontwait) sums up that early part of the year.

Harvest presented similar challenges. At Château Cantenac Brown, director José Sanfins reported having two separate teams staying in two separate locations, and never crossing at any point. ‘It was the first time that we didn’t have people eating group harvest lunches, or having full-time château staff also harvesting,’ he said.

Other châteaux reported employing people simply to check harvesters were wearing their masks and disinfecting their hands.

As Eric Kohler at Lafite Rothschild said, ‘We had to manage the weather, but also our teams at every step of the way. It’s been tough all round.’

In total, Bordeaux produced 440 million litres of wine in 2020, the equivalent of 587 million bottles – a smaller number than average, but each one well earned.

Quick links for Bordeaux 2020 en primeur ratings

Bordeaux 2020 vintage: Clues on what to expect

Top-scoring Bordeaux 2020 wines 

At a glance table: notes and scores for 95+ point wines

PLUS

Appellation overviews: Pauillac 2020 | St-Estephe 2020 | St-Julien 2020 | Margaux 2020 | Pomerol 2020 | St-Emilion 2020 | Pessac-Léognan 2020 | Sauternes & Barsac 2020 | Médoc & Haut-Médoc, Moulis & Listrac 2020 | Smaller appellations 2020 | White Bordeaux 2020

Best value Bordeaux reds 2020

Left Bank wine of the vintage: Château Margaux 

Right Bank wine of the vintage: Château Canon

Full Bordeaux 2020 en primeur verdict

The season

As Baptiste Ginaudeau at Château Lafleur said, ‘2020 brought into focus many things that have been happening in Bordeaux over the past decade. The idea of what is a typical vintage has changed. Classically you would have some wet years, some dry years, some hot years and so on, but we now have to get used to having all of these things in a single vintage – so going from a warm winter to a wet cold spring to a hot dry summer.

‘We are more ready for it now, but it means terroir and attention in the vineyard is critical. And it is more difficult to judge the wines en primeur, because we are less sure how they will progress over ageing and in bottle. We are all adapting to the new normal.’

It’s always useful to look at the Bordeaux School of Oenology (ISVV)’s assessment to see what this means in detail:

• Flowering was abundant and even, fulfilling the first condition for a successful vintage.
• Fruit set in June was more difficult due to rains and cool temperatures, particularly for Cabernets, so the second condition was only partly fulfilled. Mildew also became as strong a threat as in 2018, but with less overall damage.
• A dry July and August meant water stress helped the vines to stop growing before colour change of the grapes (véraison), although a little late in some cases – particularly as this was such an early season, around three weeks in advance of the average. That meant the third condition for a successful vintage was largely fulfilled. Rains in August varied according to location, from around 20mm in parts of Pomerol up to 120mm in Pauillac.
• Good weather continued into September; the first two weeks of the month saw zero rain at Mérignac weather station for the first time since 1958. It meant almost all varieties saw good weather for their final stretch of ripening, fulfilling the ISVV’s fourth condition for a successful vintage.
• Harvest took place largely under dry conditions, although mid-September saw a heatwave that meant grapes shrunk in size (and therefore lost potential yield as well as concentrating flavours). Rain notably fell at the end of the month, and the arrival of Storm Alex in early October further complicated things. This meant the final ISVV condition of good weather during harvest was fulfilled for Merlot and the earliest ripening Cabernets, but only partly fulfilled for later-ripening areas.

Search all Bordeaux 2020 en primeur ratings

Bordeaux 2020: style of the wines

This vintage has seen some of the lowest yields of recent years, and the resulting concentration means the ability to manage these low yields while keeping fruit and freshness was a line that needed careful walking.

You’re going to find plenty of racy, supple tannins that power forward and have a sense of energy, but also tannins that are a little dry and sometimes underripe if the drought led to blockages.

The best wines perform a sleight of hand from the vintage conditions that you see on paper. This comes from a confidence that I find in Bordeaux today, where there no longer seems to be the need to choose the biggest tannins for the main estate wine, and instead many choose to prioritise site expression.

Bordeaux 2020 en primeur scores

Potential 100-point wines (98-100s)*

• Château Ausone
• Château Cheval Blanc
• Château Belair-Monange
• Château Canon
• Château Margaux

*Jane Anson prefers not to give perfect 100-point scores at en primeur, pending reappraisal of the wines once bottled. 

The serious over-performers:

• Château Rocheyron – co-owned by Peter Sisseck of Pingus fame, this is going to garner more and more attraction.
• Château Larcis Ducasse – a standout wine in the vintage, and now Nicolas Thienpont is no longer at Beauséjour, this will receive ever more love and attention.
• Château La Gaffelière – a wine that has been getting better and better since 2017, with more focus on the best plots.
• Château Pontet-Canet – a brilliant wine in this vintage.
• Château Ducru-Beaucaillou, La Croix Ducru Beaucaillou – bucks the trend for difficult second wines in St-Julien.

If you pick one appellation: clay-limestone St-Émilion If you pick one wine: Château Larcis Ducasse

Interpreting the scores

As usual, I don’t give perfect 100 scores to wines tasted en primeur, but scores of either 98 or 99 mean that they are at the absolutely top of the scale, and may be upgraded when re-tasted in 16 months’ time after bottling.

I also want to underline that the 90-94 points bracket means Highly Recommended, and that I try to leave the 95+ only to truly exceptional wines.

This means that one clear suggestion is to look out for 94-point wines – for me a signpost score, meaning a brilliant spot that indicates extremely high quality, and often you’ll find some of the best buys in the vintage at this level.

This year that includes:

• Fleur Cardinale
• La Serre
• Le Prieuré
• Durfort-Vivens
• Les Perrières de Lafleur
• Clos Puy Arnaud
• Phélan Ségur
• and the brilliant value Domaine de l’Aurage.

And take note also of the 89-point level, now so derided that it’s seen as a mark of shame by many producers.

I scored a lot of wines at the 85-90 level, more than twice as many as I gave 95 points or more. If they were 84 or below I tend not to write them up, assuming it was a sample issue and better verified when in bottle.

Wines from the Côtes de Bordeaux or Graves, for example, are rarely high scorers in that they don’t stray into 95+ territory, but they are often brilliant examples of why it is not just the 95+ wines that are worth following.

The best way to interpret an 89-point wine, in my scoring, is by price. If these are great value wines, it’s a signpost score that means unfussy, easy to drink, super enjoyable. If they are expensive wines (and only you can decide what value or expensive means to you), you can probably find better examples in other vintages.

In the 2020 vintage I would particularly draw your attention to: No 3 d’Angélus, Fonbel and Tour de Pressac in St-Emilion, Château Confidence in Margaux, Croix Mouton in AOC Bordeaux and Clos Albertus in St-Georges-St-Emilion.

And although second wines should be approached with caution in 2020, there are a few exceptions. On the Left Bank, I would draw attention to La Croix de Beaucaillou and Pagodes de Cos Blanc, two delicious wines this year.

You can find two similarly brilliant second wines on the Right Bank that provide an exercise into the impact of different terroirs in the vintage.

Look at Mondot, the second wine of Troplong Mondot that is on entirely limestone soils, and set it against Blason de L’Evangile, the second wine of L’Evangile with sandy-clay-gravel soils. Both are Merlot dominant, both successful, but very different expressions of the grape.

Comparisons

You’ll hear lots of comparisons to 2016 and 2010 because of the number of tannins, but I haven’t found the wines to be as consistent as in those two vintages.

In most cases (certainly on the Left Bank) 1996, 2000 and 2006 are better comparisons – big tannins that are a little unwieldy at times, not generous but with potential.

The Right Bank has had an easier time of it in many ways – less rain in August, with clay-limestone soils that kept freshness – and here a comparison to 1989 seems reasonable, and more in common with the 2018 than on the Left Bank.

Key takeaways:

• Low yields, around 25% lower than last year for many of the top Left Bank reds.

Not only Cabernet Sauvignon but also Cabernet Franc was affected – and this was true right from the start of the season, not just because of the dry summer.

This is largely due to cool weather during critical parts of their growth cycle, something that did not affect the slightly earlier budding and setting Merlot, which saw both flowering and fruit set under good weather.

At this point of the year, it is not rain but temperature that affects fruit set, and there was a drop in temperature that meant there were less clusters from the start for the Cabs, with often half as many grapes as usual. Put this together with small berries from the dry summer, and then the heat spikes for mid-September (that also impacted Merlot), and the stage is set for the low yields that you find.

Château Figeac is a good example of what this means in practice. The team brought in 40 hectolitres per hectare (hl/h) for the Merlots, 30hl/h for the Cabernet Sauvignon, and 35hl/h for the Cabernet Franc.

Château Issan recorded the same thing; Merlot coming in at 43hl/h and Petit Verdot at 30hl/h. Young vines also suffered. At Château Durfort-Vivens, Gonzague Lurton saw young vines under 10 years old produce 20hl/h while the older vines came in at 35hl/h.

• Talk of Merlot’s demise looked pretty premature, because this was a great year for Merlot.

Clay-limestone soils did brilliantly – so look for value in Castillon, Francs and Fronsac.

I would suggest looking to the Ausone stable of wines to get an idea of what this means in practice. The sandier soils that you find at Fonnel and the two Simard estates have meant these wines are noticeably less successful than the limestone soils of Château Moulin St-Georges and La Clotte (let’s take Ausone out of the equation), and this alone can help explain the types of soils that did best.

• Lower alcohols almost invariably compared to both 2018 and 2019.

Bordeaux 2020 has seen lower alcohols in general, partly because August was dry but not unusually hot, and partly because the drought meant slow ripening. The vines therefore slowed down and did not build up huge sugar levels. You’ll find this true across both banks but especially in the Médoc.

• Often you see more of the personality of a vintage in the second wine and that is true in 2020.

This is certainly the case regarding tannins, which can be overpowering at times.

Search all Bordeaux 2020 en primeur ratings

Back to the main Bordeaux en primeur page