#25 Wine Spectator Top 100 of 2023
Expert Reviews - Vintage 2020
James Suckling writes: A lovely softness and texture to this wine with a medium to full body, plenty of fruit and fine velvety tannins. It’s lovely to taste now and will age beautifully. Really seductive. Hard not to drink now but one for the cellar. Best to try after 2025. - James Suckling 96
Georgina Hindle writes: Detailed and delicate, this has a seductive charm to it, slowly displaying scented blueberries and raspberries, before layers of salty minerality, liquorice, and cooling blue fruits come into play as well as tobacco and liquorice adding a savoury touch. It’s not immediately upfront - more calm and collected, slowly growing in stature and presence. Tannins are fine but mouthcoating, giving the structure, this isn't a light wine, but it's supremely elegant and excellently textured. Impressive complexity and drama here, still very serious but it's sublime too. A luminous wine I'd love to own. Drinking 2028 to 2052. - Decanter 98
Jeb Dunnuck writes: Coming from the talented Virginie Salette (the head winemaker since 2017) and tiny yields of 32 hectoliters per hectare, the 2020 Château Gruaud Larose is 79% Cabernet, 14% Merlot, and the rest Cabernet Franc, which continues the trend at this estate toward more and more Cabernet Sauvignon in the blend. Beautifully done, with a terrific sense of finesse, it offers a great nose of both red and black fruit as well as leafy tobacco, spring flowers, licorice, and spicy oak. Pure, medium to full-bodied, and wonderfully balanced, with fine tannins, it shows the focused, inward, almost understated style of the vintage without any rusticity or austerity. It needs a solid 7-8 years of bottle age, if not a decade, and is going to be very long-lived. Bravo. Drinking 2030 to 2065. - Jeb Dunnuck 96
Jane Anson writes: Beautiful depth and character here, with violet flowers on the first nose. Supple but present tannins, there is architecture and a firm core to this wine, something to hold on to as it ages, with the classic elegance of 2020 giving shoulders and tension to the tannins. As it opens you find ruby red fruits, raspberry and loganberry along with pencil lead and smoked earth. The construction is impressive, a clear sign that Gruaud Larose is back up among the greatest estates of St Julien,living up to its 1855 2nd Growth billing. In organic conversion as of 2019, with certification due in 2022 for the vineyard, 95% new oak, 1/3 of production in this wine (following extensive vineyard replantings, so this percentage will rise over the next decade). Virginie Sallette winemaker, Eric Boissenot consultant. Harvest from October 9 to 24. Drinking 2030 to 2048. - Jane Anson Inside Bordeaux 95
William Kelley writes: A serious, more obviously structured effort than the suave 2019, the 2020 Gruaud Larose opens in the glass with aromas of blackcurrants and blackberries mingled with subtle hints of burning embers, pencil shavings and violets framed by a deft touch of classy new oak. Medium to full-bodied, deep and concentrated, with rich, powdery tannins and vibrant fruit flavors, it concludes with an impressively penetrating finish. However, it appears likely to require patience. Drinking 2030 to 2060. - Robert Parker Wine Advocate 96
James Molesworth writes: Rock-solid, with a core of dark plum, boysenberry and blackberry compote flavors held together with cedar, savory, tobacco and singed apple wood notes that add texture and energy through the finish. Built for the cellar. Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc. Best from 2030 through 2040. - Wine Spectator 95
Julia Harding MW writes: Very dark with black core. Intense aroma of black fruit and smoky oak. Firm, dry in texture and deliciously fresh, perhaps in part thanks to those fine, dry tannins. The fruit is so dark, it's almost savoury. Impressive depth and elegance in a young, embryonic wine. Powerful but extremely refined. Drinking 2030 to 2045. - Jancis Robinson 17.5+
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