Category Archives: Bordeaux 2020

Bordeaux 2020 en primeur

May 29 2021

Is 2020 another top Bordeaux vintage and what are the chances of a strong ‘en primeur’ campaign after the success of the 2019s?

(A shorter version of this post forms the basis of my article on the primeurs for Harpers Wine & Spirit, June issue. I’ll be updating the recommended wines below as I continue to taste at the leading châteaux.)

A little over a year ago I was speaking to Ronan Laborde, the new President of the Union des Grands Crus de Bordeaux. Would the top châteaux still try to sell their new vintage a year before it was bottled, when all the tastings had been put on hold and the world was in lockdown? Why the rush when the wines have another 12 months in barrel, and was it the right thing to do during a pandemic?

‘Gavin,’ he replied, ‘it is in the DNA of the grands crus of Bordeaux to sell en primeur.’ And that was that, really. I duly received my invitation for a properly distanced press tasting of 2019 barrel samples from the UGCB – an association of 131 leading estates – at the Grand Hotel in the city for the first week of June. A week before that event, Château Pontet Canet announced that their price for the 2019 was 31% less than for the 2018. The 2016 had been released at €108 per bottle, ex-Bordeaux negociant, and the 2018 at €84. The 2019 – an excellent vintage as far as I could tell – was to be €58. Game on.

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Bordeaux 2020 yields – quality over quantity?

February 22 2021

This article was also published on JancisRobinson.com and by Liv-ex.

Here is my detailed report on the amount of wine produced by the whole of Bordeaux in 2020. Each year I pull together the latest figures after they are released in February, and update my tables, charts and maps before the ‘en primeur’ tastings of the new vintage in the spring.

Regular readers will be delighted that I’ve added some new, thrilling graphics for 2021, so this deep-dive analysis has now sunk even lower: if the wines of Bordeaux and/or data crunching aren’t really your thing, you may want to scroll swiftly along.

This review of how much wine was made, and where, should be seen as a follow-up to my detailed 2020 harvest and weather report from last October, published soon after the crop came in. The weather and growing conditions, naturally enough, go hand in hand with the volume and quality of wine produced. “There’ll be some terrific wines from 2020,” I wrote. “Yields for many estates are lower, with less juice due to heat and drought, but the quality is high – albeit variable.”

I also put together a photo journal of the red harvest in 2020. They’ve been harvesting grapes like this at Château Lafite Rothschild – in this case, Merlot – for many years but there are some clues that date certain images.

2020 Bordeaux production compared to previous vintages

Bordeaux produced 440 million litres of wine in 2020, the equivalent of 587 million bottles. This was around 10% less than 2019 and 2018 (486ml and 499ml respectively), which were both close to the 10-year average.

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2020 Bordeaux red harvest, in pictures

October 07 2020

For the last four weekly missives, every Wednesday throughout September, I’ve posted a photo journal of our harvest at Bauduc (bauduc.com/news) for crémant, dry white, rosé and red. It’s high time we looked at what’s been happening across Bordeaux so here, again, is a long stream of images with a few comments.

All being well, I’ll be publishing my infamous ‘weather and harvest report’ on the vintage next week, and this will be stuffed full of fascinating data and charts, with objective analysis and the occasional opinion. 2020 saw an early season and harvest, with nearly all the red grapes being harvested in September.

For now, here are some photos of a few of those grapes coming in.

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