En Primeur 2020 Announcement

Once again, our Fine Wine team couldn't fly to Bordeaux for the annual En Primeur tastings. But, in the following weeks, we will be tasting plenty of the 2020 samples in HK and discussing with various Châteaux (via zoom), to get a better understanding of the vintage.

2020 is a year that nobody will forget. Already, international wine critics have heralded this special 2020 vintage as one of the greatest vintages in Bordeaux.

“After tasting more than 400 barrel samples from the 2020 vintage, I can 100% confirm that it is another great year for Bordeaux. The 2020 vintage marks a rare trilogy of excellent vintages…” – James Suckling

“…there’ll be some terrific wines from 2020. Yields for many estates are lower, with less juice due to heat and drought, but the quality is high – albeit variable.” - JancisRobinson.com

We have summarised a few key highlights of the vintage.

-      Mild winter and spring, led to early budding and flowering

-      Wet spring, causing a threat of downy mildew. Some vineyards lost volume from this

-      Hailstorms affected a few areas

-      Very dry summer. Those with clay and limestone soils resisted drought better because of the good ground water reserves. A bit more challenging for sandy soil

-      The low rainfall during summer reduced berry sizes, further impacting yields

-      Early harvest in hot and fine weather. Most red harvesting had finished up by the end of September, just before the rain in October

2020 has smaller yields (10-20% less) compared to the 2019 vintage, due to mildew and the hot weather spike in September.

The wines are described as having good tannic structure (with the high skin-to-juice ratio), ripe and opulent fruits, but maintain good freshness.

Stay tuned! We will update you further, after the sample tastings in the coming weeks.