Bordeaux 2020 at Two Years: Pauillac

My tastings in St Estèphe done, I set about working my way around the Pauillac appellation, visiting the majority of the top names.

What a day of tasting this was. Some properties simply performed as we might expect; after all, there aren’t any underperforming premier grand cru classé estates on the Médoc these days (its not the 1970s you know), so we can look to those wines to show well. So too for the two Pichons, both of which are currently on top form, and this has been true for some time now. Below this clique of superior châteaux, however, there are a number of properties – some really rather well-known and, in some quarters highly regarded – where the performance can be rather more variable.

But it was visiting these latter properties, and tasting these occasionally anticlimactic wines, and finding one over-performing success after another, that made this such a good day of tasting. Even a number of the second wines impressed, including at some châteaux where I habitually walk away feeling a little underwhelmed. Suffice to say this is a very good vintage for Pauillac, with some excellent wines, from some châteaux the best I have tasted in a long time. Maybe ever.

I don’t think I am overselling it.

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