Harvest Notes 2020

The 2020 growing year can be summed up by an unusually mild winter with heavy rains in early March, followed by mixed conditions in April/May that lead to an intense summer drought with heat spikes in August and September, culminating with late rain towards the end of harvest.

However, in order to understand how such varied climatic conditions produced another potentially great Bordeaux vintage we really need to add a little more detail.

The first thing to point out is that even though the mild winter lead to bud burst around 15 days earlier than usual, the spring weather also brought many unwanted challenges including hail, frost, snow and heavy rainfall at times. Late March also brought very pleasant and warm weather, but by early April there was a serious threat of frost and we deployed candles into our vines at Mazeyres, but fortunately, we did not need to light them.

However, as the month progressed, the temperature also slowly increased and although very dry for the first half of the month, more frequent rain fell later on. In fact it was the warmest April since 1920, but the fluctuating temperatures also brought hail on Sunday 17th but again we were fortunately not affected.

May was then warm and sunny, although again marked by frequent rainstorms during the first two weeks with some localised flooding, but temperatures remained relatively warm as the flowering started around 20 May. This is about 10 days earlier than average, although comparable to 2003 and 2011 and the results were generally good and even.

The continuing stable conditions also produced a good fruit set and at this point the yields looked healthy, although after a rainy start to the month, the threat of Mildew became quite intense in early June.

Things then settled and late June heralded warmer and drier days and July and August saw the driest summer since 1959 with temperatures in July showing 24 days above 25°C and 12 days topping over 30°C. We also recorded 316 hours of sunshine in July or 30% more than usual, but just 3mm of rain compared to the 50mm average.

In fact, during this period it was so warm and dry that on certain ‘terroirs’ the ripening became completely blocked and veraison which typically lasts eight to twelve days took up to three weeks or more.

As always, there were of course marked differences across the different terroirs, which in some cases pushed the expected early harvest date back by a week or more, but this is really where the soils and local micro-climates came into play.

In certain parts of Pomerol where there is a high density of sandy loam soils, the vines suffered a lot, but those parcels planted on clay and limestone fared much better, as did the more gravelly areas that were underpinned by clay.

However, as August continued hot and dry, a temperature of 39.6°C was recorded at Mérignac on 7 August, whilst locally in Pomerol the mercury hit 40°C and over even though a rare rainy spell from 11th to 15th August did bring much needed relief.

Overall, the sunshine record in August at 233 hours was close to normal, but the water deficit across both July and August was an eye watering 60% lower than average.

As we approached the end of August, we were relatively relaxed about the harvest preparations as the weather remained fine, but several serious heat spikes over the first two weeks of September caused yield losses, particularly as the nights also remained relatively warm.

We finally commenced harvest on 10th September picking a small selection of Mazeyres old vine merlot and then continued at Plince the next day as the weather cooled overnight although it hit 26C in the late afternoon.

We then carried on harvesting the young merlot at Mazeyres on Saturday 12th September but then waited until the following Friday 18th September to pick the young Cabernet Franc at Plince and with that, our 2020 was harvest over.

 The quality of the fruit seems extremely positive, with the thick skins giving plenty of colour although the high levels of tannins required careful extraction but the early results point to wines of great balance, good tension and tannins but most elegant in character.

The 2020 wines are closer in style to 2016 than 2015 but with a little more concentration than 2016’s, probably because of the lower yields. There is also much talk about this being a ‘technical or winemaker’s vintage’, but it is certainly one where the complexity of Pomerol’s soil types will show their strength.

We are very optimistic about the quality of this years production and although the wines may be approachable reasonably early as is usual with Pomerol, with long and careful cellaring they should also age gracefully and much reward patience.