ETS. JEAN-PIERRE MOUEIX , 2020 VINTAGE EN PRIMEUR

2020 VINTAGE EN PRIMEUR

"A vintage that combines ripeness and freshness, which will satisfy both impatient collectors and those willing to wait." ÉDOUARD MOUEIX, May 2021

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2020 VINTAGE EN PRIMEUR

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INDEPENDENT WINE MERCHANTS SINCE 1780

THE 2020 VINTAGE: MA JOR THIRD “2018-19-20 is the best trio of vintages in my long experience.”

Christian Moueix

Quite a statement from Christian Moueix, who has seen exactly half a century of vintages since 1970, the year he started working alongside his father, the great Jean-Pierre Moueix.

In 1970, the 24 year-old Christian took on the rather daunting responsibility of overseeing all of the family’s vineyards – arguably the greatest collection on the right bank of Bordeaux. Although increasingly commercially focused over the years, becoming President of J-P Moueix in 1991, his heart remains among the vines. So, a claim worth taking seriously!

What, however, of 2020 itself? It may well be part of a great trio, but how does it stand up in isolation? Édouard Moueix, at the helm of the company today, describes it as “a vintage that combines ripeness and freshness, which will satisfy both impatient collectors and those willing to wait.” This duality of upfront approachability and serious ageing potential is a key strength of the 2020s, the product of a unique growing season.

The winter of 2019-20 was unusually warm, apparently the mildest in France since the beginning of the 20th century. It followed a very wet autumn that replenished

the soil water reserves. January and February were uncommonly dry, the continued warmth encouraging an early budbreak.

Spring stayed warm but with high rainfall. Nonetheless, flowering was pristine and early, leading into an even and abundant fruit set, bringing an expectation of strong yields.

Green harvesting and precision canopy management in the early summer evened out variations in yield potential between plots.

Summer was hot and dry. July saw the peak of the summer drought, which affected all of Bordeaux and was 2020’s ultimate stress-test of each terroir. It was here that Pomerol’s moisture-retentive clay soils came into their own, meting out crucial water supplies to their vines.

In Saint-Émilion, Édouard spoke of Bélair-Monange’s “beautiful block of limestone, which retains the water”, to similar effect.

Welcome rain in mid-August brought freshness and safeguarded the grapes’ maturation. From the end of August, cool nights preserved the all-important acids, while warm September days encouraged the final buildup of sugars and colour-giving anthocyanins.

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Harvest started at La Fleur-Pétrus (‘LFP’), on 10th September, lasting a leisurely ten days. Edouard enthused that the resulting wine is of “unbelievable complexity – liquorice, violet, blue fruits, blackberries… sensuality defines LFP this year.”

Bélair-Monange and Trotanoy both started picking on the 15th, the former completed in a brisk three days, the latter stretching on until the 23rd. Christian, with characteristic understatement, called Bélair-Monange “fresh and perfectly ripe… like a crystal, it has a purity which I think we cannot find in many other places.”

Trotanoy for Édouard is “compact, with a lot of fruit, almost like a rock, an impenetrable ball of ink” and for Christian, simply “so intense…”

Hosanna, two thirds of which was planted in 1956 and 1957, now boasts some of Pomerol’s oldest vines. These old vines have made a wine of exalted succulence and a joyfulness worthy of its name.

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2020 VINTAGE EN PRIMEUR

a masterclass in Pomerol’s rich-fruited expression of the grape variety. During our tasting, Édouard rightly pointed to a sense of “plenitude” here, a particular fullness or generosity in 2020.

Without room here to mention every wine (have a good read of Adam’s notes for that), there is just space to stress that you don’t have to be grand to be great – as demonstrated by our good friend Barry White. Perhaps aided by the overall success of the Merlot in 2020, the inimitable Château Barrail du Blanc has outdone itself this year and deserves a place in every cellar, however smart.

2020 may indeed become the third act in a celebrated Bordeaux trilogy. For now though, it is enough to call it a scintillating, richly expressive right bank vintage, the product of an abundance and then a shortage of water, of extreme summer heat and cool late season nights. Its pervasive freshness will make it a pleasure to drink early whilst its intricate and generous structure will sustain it long into the future.

If only all 100% Merlots were like Latour à Pomerol,

GUY SEDDON May 2021

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2020 VINTAGE EN PRIMEUR

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2020 TASTING NOTES

By Adam Brett-Smith

Château Barrail du Blanc

Clos La Madeleine

I’m trying to come to grips with why the tiny “Barry White” is so good in 2020… Perhaps it’s the small amount of clay in the predominantly gravelly, sandy soil that allowed a degree of moisture retention in the dry, dry hot heart of this growing season. This wine is a joy, from its surprising opaque ruby colour to a delectably dark, juicy, almost inky profound nose. The dark fruit is translated on the palate into a rich, fresh burst of flavours, sweetly structured, nicely balanced and with really good length.

One of the best Barrail du Blancs.

The immediate neighbour of the old 1st growth Château Magdelaine and just 2.3 hectares in size on the most beautiful clay-limestone soil, this is a little jewel. Deepest ruby. Darkest perfumed red fruits. The real beauty is in the palate, which is super refined, with a silky dry richness, a fresh, impeccably balanced tannic structure and a burst of sweetness to the finish. “Very Moueix”, I scribbled in the margin. Very lovely.

Saint-Émilion Grand Cru

Exclusive to Corney & Barrow in the UK Corney & Barrow Score 18 Recommended drinking from 2023 - 2027+ £189/CASE OF 12 BOTTLES, IN BOND UK £94.50/CASE OF 6 BOTTLES, IN BOND UK £199/CASE OF 24 HALVES, IN BOND UK £199/CASE OF 6 MAGNUMS, IN BOND UK £105/CASE OF 1 DOUBLE MAGNUM, IN BOND UK Vineyard size: 7 hectares (17 acres) Soil types: Gravel and clay 2020 vintage blend: 70% Merlot 30% Cabernet Franc

Saint-Émilion Grand Cru Classé

Corney & Barrow Score 17.5 Recommended drinking from 2025 - 2029+

SOLD OUT Vineyard size: 2.3 hectares (5.6 acres) Soil types: Clay on limestone 2020 vintage blend: 100% Merlot

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2020 VINTAGE EN PRIMEUR

Clos Saint-Martin

Château Bélair-Monange

This is yet another tiny property, this time 1.36 hectares, old vined, beautifully sited between the two 1st growths of Château Beau-Séjour Bécot and Château Beauséjour Héritiers Duffau-Lagarrosse. I believe our first purchase of this wine dates back to the 1987 vintage, so we know the property quite well. It is a strapping wine in 2020, opaque ruby in colour and with an exotic, almost camphorous note. The palate is rich and muscular with real presence and depth. Better than 2019?

No, just different.

The 2020 marks another step in the elegantly relentless resurgence of this great, great estate, considered historically as the finest in St Émilion. Profound ruby colour. The nose has that textbook Bélair-Monange super refined, almost polished red fruit perfume Intricate and both elusive and profound. The palate is delectably creamy, with that calm quality of measured, sophisticated structure, sweet-dry layered flavours and a subtle flair of freshness and concentration to the finish.

Super wine.

Exclusive to Corney & Barrow in the UK Corney & Barrow Score 17 Recommended drinking from 2026 - 2033+

Corney & Barrow Score 18 Recommended drinking from 2030 - 2037+

Saint-Émilion Grand Cru Classé

Saint-Émilion 1er Grand Cru Classé

£725/CASE OF 6 BOTTLES, IN BOND UK £450/CASE OF 6 BOTTLES, IN BOND UK

£735/CASE OF 3 MAGNUMS, IN BOND UK

£460/CASE OF 3 MAGNUMS, IN BOND UK Vineyard size:

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Vineyard size:

23.5 hectares (57.5 acres)

1.3 hectares (3 acres)

Soil types:

Soil types:

Asteriated limestone on the plateau,

Clay on limestone

blue clay on limestone in the slopes

2020 vintage blend:

2020 vintage blend:

80% Merlot

98% Merlot

15% Cabernet Franc

2% Cabernet Franc

5% Cabernet Sauvignon

To Order LONDON

020 7265 2430 EDINBURGH

01875 321 921 sales@corneyandbarrow.com PLEASE NOTE These wines are released en primeur. Delivery dates to be confirmed. All prices are quoted in bond UK.

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2020 VINTAGE EN PRIMEUR

Château de Bel-Air

Château Plince

Unusually there is a small but significant (8%) proportion of Cabernet Sauvignon in this otherwise classic Merlot-dominant property with a rather lovely gravel on clay, iron rich subsoiled vineyard. Firm ruby colour.

The nose has a sweet briary, leafy perfume, very pure.

The palate is silken fresh, nicely balanced with seductive plump fruit, gentle structure and really nice length.

Joyful wine

A fatter proportion of Merlot (84%), finesses even its normally flamboyant character in 2020. Opaque ruby colour, with a creamy, black fruit perfume and a touch of clay and graphite. The palate is structured but well cloaked in full, spicy generous flavours, dense and sweet.

A crowd pleaser and all the better for it.

Lalande de Pomerol

Corney & Barrow Score 17.5+ Recommended drinking from 2022 - 2026

Pomerol

Corney & Barrow Score 17+ Recommended drinking from 2023 - 2027+ £295/CASE OF 12 BOTTLES, IN BOND UK £147.50/CASE OF 6 BOTTLES, IN BOND UK

£195/CASE OF 12 BOTTLES, IN BOND UK

£305/CASE OF 6 MAGNUMS, IN BOND UK

£97.50/CASE OF 6 BOTTLES, IN BOND UK £205/CASE OF 6 MAGNUMS, IN BOND UK

Vineyard size: 8.5 hectares (21 acres)

Vineyard size:

Soil types:

15 hectares (37 acres)

Dark soil on iron pan

Soil types:

2020 vintage blend:

Gravel on clay and old, deep, blue clay

84% Merlot

2020 vintage blend:

16% Cabernet Franc

73% Merlot 19% Cabernet Franc 8% Cabernet Sauvignon

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Château La Grave

Château Bourgneuf

The Moueix family have owned this historic property since 1971 and the small eight hectares vineyard sits on beautiful gravel soil. It is one of the great values in Pomerol. Deepest ruby. A pungently strawberry and raspberry fruited perfume on the nose, is mirrored by a fresh, bright, perfectly extracted palate, with a supple, silken concentration, perfect balance and sweet, sweet length. A lovely La Grave, the perfect foil for the 2019.

Tasted immediately after La Grave the contrast could not be more marked. This is a big wine with profound, dusty black fruit on the nose, spicy and rich. The palate is substantial, with big, chewy tannins but well covered by broad, generously extended, broodingly dense fruit.

This is an ambitious, large scale Bourgneuf with admirable presence, but give it time to show its really excellent quality.

Exclusive to Corney & Barrow in the UK Corney & Barrow Score 17 - 18 Recommended drinking from 2024 - 2029+

Corney & Barrow Score 17 - 18 Recommended drinking from 2028 - 2034+

Pomerol

Pomerol

£465/CASE OF 12 BOTTLES, IN BOND UK £395/CASE OF 12 BOTTLES, IN BOND UK

£475/CASE OF 6 MAGNUMS, IN BOND UK

£197.50/CASE OF 6 BOTTLES, IN BOND UK £207.50/CASE OF 3 MAGNUMS, IN BOND UK

Vineyard size:

£405/CASE OF 6 MAGNUMS, IN BOND UK

9 hectares (22 acres)

£180/CASE OF 1 DOUBLE MAGNUM, IN BOND UK

Soil types: Gravel and clay, iron-rich subsoil

Vineyard size:

2020 vintage blend:

8 hectares (19.5 acres)

85% Merlot

Soil types:

15% Cabernet Franc

Gravel and fine clay 2020 vintage blend: 85% Merlot

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15% Cabernet Franc

Tasting Guide Our tasting notes provide full details but, at your request, we have also introduced a clear and simple marking system. We hope these guidelines assist you in your selection. For the benefit of simplicity, wines are scored out of 20. We will often use a range of scores (e.g. 16.5 to 17) to indicate the potential to achieve a higher mark. When a ‘+’ is shown it adds further to that potential. Wines from lesser vintages will, inevitably, show a lower overall score.

Wines are judged, in a very broad sense, against their peers. Why? Well, you cannot easily compare a Ford with an Aston Martin, other than they are both cars and have wheels. It is not that different with wine. A score is a summary only. The devil is in the detail, so please focus on the tasting notes and, as always, speak to our sales team.

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2020 VINTAGE EN PRIMEUR

Château Lagrange

Latour à Pomerol

This is one of the very few estates in Pomerol that is 100% Merlot and in 2015, a lovely four hectares parcel of La Fleur Petrus was spliced into this small vineyard.

Lagrange is a triumph in 2020. Opaque ruby colour.

The nose is beautiful, with darkest red fruit, subtly minty and sherbet fresh. The palate is supple and rich with a quite lovely powder-fine structure, beautiful balance and a plump dense finish. “Plenitude”, I wrote in the margin.

I like this wine a lot.

So beautiful was the Merlot in 2020 that once again, as in 2019, this is a uniquely Merlot wine. This is a legendary property, farmed by the Moueix since 1962. Powerful, dense, no, opaque ruby colour. The nose is carapaced at this stage, with clenched, meaty red, red, fruit. The palate has that measured, calm density with no flamboyance but with ripely rich fruit, amply but sweetly extracted and with an effortless, graceful length to the finish. “David Gower”, I wrote in the margin (older generation only).

Corney & Barrow Score 17 - 18 Recommended drinking from 2024 - 2028+

Exclusive to Corney & Barrow in the UK Corney & Barrow Score 17.5 Recommended drinking from 2027 - 2033+

Pomerol

SOLD OUT

Pomerol

£370/CASE OF 6 BOTTLES, IN BOND UK

Vineyard size:

£380/CASE OF 3 MAGNUMS, IN BOND UK

9 hectares (22 acres)

£295/CASE OF 1 DOUBLE MAGNUM, IN BOND UK

Soil types: Deep gravel and clay (2/3) Clay and loam (1/3)

Vineyard size:

2020 vintage blend:

8 hectares (19.5 acres)

100% Merlot

Soil types: Clay and deep gravel 2020 vintage blend: 100% Merlot

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Château Hosanna

Château Certan de May

I remember when Christian Moueix acquired the beautiful Certan Giraud vineyard back in 1999, suggesting that he combine the name Certan with Moueix in order to celebrate the family’s close connection to and profound influence over this now legendary commune.

Well, this innate Moueix modesty gave rise to a rather more religious celebration – hence the cry of exaltation, Hosanna! Only the choicest, highest part of the Pomerol plateau makes up this small estate and with Château La Fleur to the north, Petrus to the east, La Fleur-Pétrus to the west and Vieux Château Certan to the south, you get the picture…

This is another historic property dating back to the 16th Century, gifted by the Kings of France to the Scottish de May family (and doubtless for their services against the beastly English…) It was planted to vines in the 18th Century by the de Mays and is now owned by the Barreau family (no connection). The château is of course the immediate neighbour of Vieux Château Certan and La Fleur-Pétrus. It is distinctive for having a relatively high Cabernet ratio (25% Cabernet Franc, 10% Cabernet Sauvignon) in 2020, with an opaque ruby colour and a sweet, vinous, almost treacle-succulent red fruit nose.

The palate has fine concentration and density, a welllifted freshness and excellent length. Shades the 2019 as well – which is a fine achievement.

Pomerol

Deepest ruby. The nose possesses an almost zesty, flamboyant perfume, bright and black. The palate offers that textbook silken supple density, effortlessly extracted with sweet flavours and a fine, chewy length. Plenitude x 2.

Corney & Barrow Score 17.5 Recommended drinking from 2026 - 2032+

SOLD OUT Vineyard size: 4.5 hectares (11 acres) Soil types: Blue clay on red gravel, iron-rich subsoil 2020 vintage blend: 75% Merlot 25% Cabernet Franc

Pomerol

Corney & Barrow Score 17.5 Recommended drinking from 2027 - 2032+ £505/CASE OF 6 BOTTLES, IN BOND UK £515/CASE OF 3 MAGNUMS, IN BOND UK Vineyard size: 5.5 hectares (13.5 acres) Soil types: Deep gravel and clay on iron-rich subsoil 2020 vintage blend: 65% Merlot 25% Cabernet Franc 10% Cabernet Sauvignon

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2020 VINTAGE EN PRIMEUR

Château La Fleur-Pétrus

Château Trotanoy

This was the first of the great Pomerol properties to be bought by Jean-Pierre Moueix in 1950 and through its beautiful deep-bedded gravel and clay soils, this predominantly Merlot estate combines a density and silkiness that is touched by a tiny and unique twist of Petit Verdot (2% of this blend in 2020). Opaque ruby colour. The nose is beautifully perfumed, with spice, leather, plummy red fruit and a touch of mint. The palate is both densely structured and eerily fresh, flawlessly extracted, with supple, succulent flavours, sweet, medium concentration and beautiful length. This also shades the 2019.

100% Merlot again in 2020 which, with its unique soil – a dense mixture of clay and gravel with iron rich “crasse de fer” underneath – offers a stunning wine in this vintage.

Trotanoy appears to wear the hot and dry heart of the growing season almost casually on its sleeve….

Pomerol

Corney & Barrow Score 18 - 18.5 Recommended drinking from 2027 - 2032+ £975/CASE OF 6 BOTTLES, IN BOND UK £985/CASE OF 3 MAGNUMS, IN BOND UK £705/CASE OF 1 DOUBLE MAGNUM, IN BOND UK Vineyard size: 18.7 hectares (45.8 acres) Soil types:

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Gravel and deep clay on iron-rich subsoil 2020 vintage blend: 93% Merlot 5% Cabernet Franc 2% Petit Verdot

Pomerol

Opaque ruby colour. The nose is fathomlessly dark and meaty, still muted at this early stage but with flashes of deepest red and black fruit perfume. The palate possesses an almost eery (that word again) combination of sensuously rich, clenched fruit and massive extract but the whole is flawlessly balanced with a lifted freshness that holds these profound ingredients quite effortlessly.

Terrific concentration to the sweet/dry, sustained finish.

“A velvet fist in an iron glove”, I scribbled rather uselessly.

Tremendous wine.

Exclusive to Corney & Barrow in the UK Corney & Barrow Score 18.5 - 19 Recommended drinking from 2029 - 2035+ To be released in a dedicated offer in early July Vineyard size: 7.2 hectares (17.5 acres) Soil types: Gravel on clay and black clay on iron pan 2020 vintage blend: 100% Merlot

To Order LONDON

020 7265 2430 EDINBURGH

01875 321 921 sales@corneyandbarrow.com PLEASE NOTE These wines are released en primeur. Delivery dates to be confirmed. All prices are quoted in bond UK.

To find out more about Corney & Barrow visit www.corneyandbarrow.com

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INDEPENDENT WINE MERCHANTS SINCE 1780

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2020 VINTAGE EN PRIMEUR

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INDEPENDENT WINE MERCHANTS SINCE 1780

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