Following the annual Southwold tasting in January this year, Neal Martin (Vinous) has released his new set of scores for the 2020 Bordeaux vintage. Liv-ex members have consistently voted Neal Martin as the most influential Bordeaux En Primeur critic.
His scores are, in some cases, lower than when he first tasted them in barrel in 2021 and in bottle in 2022. This, he says, is normal – one is ‘a touch more critical’ when tasting wines within their peer groups, and the wines are not yet old enough to show their best. He ranks the 2020 vintage ahead of the 2018, but behind the 2019 and 2022.
He described the dry white wines as ‘hit-and-miss’ — while he praised the likes of Grand-Village Blanc, Malartic-Lagraviere Blanc, Domaine de Chevalier Blanc and Smith Haut-Lafitte Blanc, he expressed uncertainty about the value of Haut-Brion Blanc and La mission Haut-Brion Blanc.
His top ten wines from this tasting were split equally between the Left and Right Bank. He noted Saint-Emilion and Margaux as the two sub-regions providing reliably good quality but considered Pomerol and Pessac-Léognan ‘patchier’. Still, Chateau La Mission Haut-Brion, Chateau Trotanoy and Chateau L’Eglise Clinet all featured amongst his top five in this tasting round.
Martin abstained from giving scores to a number of wines, including Château Lafite Rothschild, which featured amongst his initial in-barrel top 10. According to Martin, high ABVs have rendered the 2020s more prone to ‘instability and inter-bottle variation’. Thus, he felt some of the bottles opened were not representative. Still, he says, the 2020 vintage has endowed us with a ‘bevy of outstanding wines’.
Neal Martin’s top-rated Bordeaux 2020s
Martin awarded no 100-point scores and gave 99 points to only one wine: Château Pichon-Longueville Comtesse de Lalande. Of his top ten wines from this tasting, listed in the table above, Pichon-Longueville is one of the more affordable options. The release of Martin’s scores appears to have had some immediate impact on the market – it traded twice on Tuesday, 8.3% above market.
The similarly priced Château Canon (£1,224 per 12×75) also featured amongst the top ten. According to Martin, it is ‘not quite perfection, but in the same postcode’. Notably, Canon is the only wine amongst this top ten whose Market Price remains above its ex-London release price — impressive in this market, and a testament to the good value provided by its En Primeur release (as we reported here at the time).
When Martin first tasted the 2020s in bottle, he awarded Château Montrose his highest score (99 points). He lowered the score to 97+ this time around. While still describing the wine as ‘outstanding’, he added that it ‘will need serious cellaring’.
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