James Suckling

“It almost seems hard to remember what took place in 2020 in Bordeaux… Yet if you buy or drink a bottle of top-rated 2020 Bordeaux, you are going to be more than happy. In fact, you most likely will be elated. The hot and dry vintage produced fantastic wines showing richness in fruit and warm and succulent flavors, yet they maintain freshness, brightness and energy.

JamesSuckling.com rated almost 2,000 Bordeaux from the 2020 vintage and the quality is fantastic. The best reds show a combination of finesse, structure and gravity, with well-judged opulence.”

Wine Enthusiast

“The 2020 wines have beautiful fruit, tannins that float in the wine and shining acidity. It was surprisingly easy to appreciate the more than 200 wines I tasted for this year’s en primeur reviews. There are no hard tannins to get through, as the wines are impressively velvety. And yet, along with all the fine fruit and stunning acidity, there’s structure, density and great promise for the future.

The freshness is due to cool nights through the summer and the moisture that remained in the soil from the wet spring.

If growers expected high tannins and alcohol from the small amount of juice, they were astonished to find it was instead fresh, with balanced acidity.”

Decanter

“Another vintage of extremes in Bordeaux, with both challenging weather and pandemic lockdowns sparing few. Yet 2020 has produced a number of excellent wines and in parts can be confirmed as the conclusion of a great trilogy.

The best wines offer personality, sleekness, concentration, smooth tannins and abundant freshness – ‘classic’ claret markers that put you squarely in their appellations.”

Forbes

“After sampling hundreds of wines and visiting multiple chateaux throughout Saint-Émilion, Pomerol, Médoc, Graves, Bourg and Blaye in the Bordeaux region of southwest France—the overall take on vintage 2020 is—in a word: stellar.

In general, Bordeaux 2020 red wines have low-key but silky tannins, excellent (and in many cases, seamless) acidity/tannin/fruit integration, and generally vibrant acidity that shines a lighthouse beam on gorgeously rich, soft and often velvety fruit characteristics. The sleek and radiant acidity and its coziness with profound fruit aromas/flavors is a prominent aspect of the 2020 vintage. Whereas the overall quality of left bank reds is elevated and relatively consistent, the right bank is also, but includes a few almost outlier spikes in beautiful quality—due primarily (again) to precise, silky tannins, vibrant acidity and deeply satisfying fruit characteristics.

A few red wines include a lick of mildly bristling herbaceousness—whether in the form of eucalyptus, mint, sage or green grass characteristics. In general, this characteristic is innocuous to overall quality and the longer term character of vintage 2020 Bordeaux red wines.

Vintage 2020 is easy drinking now (which makes it comparable 2016), yet will age well for decades.

Vejret… Alle taler om vejret!

2020 var det tredje varme år i træk i Bordeaux, men ikke helt som de to foregående. Vinteren sørgede for gode vandreserver i jorden, som der skulle blive brug for senere. Blomstringen allerede i slutningen af maj forløb godt. Meldug i den våde og varme periode, inden tørken satte ind midt i juni, kostede en del af det potentielle udbytte. Der var total tørke fra 18/6 – 11/8, men regnen, der kom i 2. halvdel af august, var ekstremt vigtig for de fine resultater der kom.

Druerne var generelt små med tykt skind, og den friskhed, der præger de fleste vine, har overrasket dyrkerne selv. Vinenes karakter er traditionel Bordeaux: Koncentrerede og fast strukturerede med en god modvægt af friskhed i frugten og ret moderat alkohol. I mange vine er udviklingspotentialet stort.

Se et udpluk af Bordeaux 2020 vinene nedenfor.