St Emilion Grand Cru Classé, 2024: The 2020 Vintage
After more than two decades of writing about wine, and more then three decades of drinking and thinking about it, St Emilion still has the power to bewitch.
It is not solely the wines. Back in 2012 – too long ago, perhaps – I lingered in the region for a week or two, partly to taste and visit, but also to soak up some of the St Emilion atmosphere. This is in contrast to most visits to the Bordeaux region – for the primeurs or for my in-bottle tastings – during which my encounters with the town are rather ethereal, as I buzz along the cobbles of the Rue Guadet, bypassing the town’s Medieval heart en route to an appointment at Château Canon, Château Angelus or some other exalted stalwart of the St Emilion appellation.
Back in 2012 though, I parked up and wandered those ancient streets, lingering to gaze in shop windows with their displays of vinous gewgaws and bottles wearing labels both familiar and (somewhat to my surprise) unknown, before I took a seat at a cafe in the square outside the town’s famed monolithic church. There my eyes wandered over a long wine list festooned with famous names, and which culminated in a page dedicated entirely to Château Ausone, with multiple vintages available. All at five figures per bottle.
I don’t think I had the Ausone with my pizza that day.
While opportunities to linger in the town since that time have been few and far between, I naturally come back to the region to taste the latest vintages. Sometimes, though, rather than having to travel to St Emilion, instead St Emilion comes to me; so it was in early 2024 when more than 30 members of the Association des Grands Crus Classés de St Emilion landed in London to pour their wines. The timing of the tasting was just perfect; the date was just a day or two before the Salon des Vins de Loire, so rather than heading direct from Edinburgh to Angers I stopped off in London for a couple of days to take in this tasting (and one or two others – well, you have to, don’t you?).
The vintage on show at this event was 2020, so I present below 31 fresh tasting notes on the wines of this vintage, a myriad of well-known names including Château La Tour Figeac, Château de Pressac (pictured), Château Laroque and Château Grand Corbin-Despagne, to name just four. All the attendees also poured another vintage alongside their 2020, and in the second part of this report I will present my notes and scores on those older wines. Here I stick solely to 2020 though, and before we get to my thoughts on the wines and my tasting notes, a few words on the nature of the 2020 season are perhaps warranted.
