Château La Fleur-Pétrus 2020

I tasted five wines from the 2020 vintage: La Grave, Latour à Pomerol, La Fleur Petrus, Trotanoy, and Belair Monange. This was my first experience with these wines in the 2020 vintage, as I could not taste them from the barrel during the primeur tasting in April 2021 due to travel restrictions caused by COVID-19. I was very impressed by the delicate and silky nature of La Grave (92 points) and Latour à Pomerol (93 points). La Fleur Petrus (97+ points) was sublime and highly complex, while Trotanoy (98+ points) was multidimensional, with everything ideally in place. Belair Monange (98+ points) had intense black truffles and black cherries on the nose and was sophisticated to the core.

2020  Château La Fleur Petrus Pomerol Dark in color, the nose, with its bouquet of flowers, truffle, wet earth, licorice, Asian spice and red with black fruits let you know this is special. However, if you were not convinced yet, once the wine hits your palate with its silk and velvet textures, you'll be hooked. Rich, full-bodied, sensuous and sexy, the array of fruits and their purity is spell-binding. The finish lingers, expands and inspires you to take another sip to experience it all over again. One of the wines of the vintage, this stunning Pomerol will age and develop for at least 3 decades. 97-99  Pts

One of my favorite wines in the vintage is the 2020 Château La Fleur-Petrus, which reminds me slightly of the 2016, even though the growing season was quite different. A blend of mostly Merlot with small amounts of Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot, its dense purple color is followed by a heavenly, ethereal Pomerol offering a powerful, almost Petrus-like sense of stature and density that carries incredible cassis and currant fruits as well as notes of graphite, crushed stone, chocolate, and violets. Flawlessly balanced on the palate, with a dense, layered mid-palate and building, perfect tannins, I just hope it shows this well from bottle! It should, at a minimum, match – and probably surpass – the 2009, 2016, and 2018

Intense purple colour with violet hue and black core. Impressing wine with multi-layered aroma reminiscent of ripe elderberries, mulberries, mallow blossoms, violets and oriental spices. Subtle oak with hints of dark chocolate and vanilla in the background. On the palate opulent yet elegant with great freshness, polished tannins, sweet fruit and mild spices. Precision and elegance unified.