The 2020 vintage in Pomerol
Vintage benchmark: 96/100 (appellation benchmark, not a score for this wine)
Vintage character: An early, dry year gave splendid wines, which many rank above 2018.
Overall reading of the year’s season across Pomerol. An estate can depart from it sharply, in frost or hail years, where two neighbours did not make the same vintage. What this particular wine actually gave is on its technical sheet and in the scores above.
Tasting
The Vieux Château Certan 2020 is a radiant wine and displays a deep purple red hue of rare depth and beautiful aromas of ripe fruit. Its remarkable balance between freshness and concentration enable all the qualities of a great long-ageing wine to shine through.
The vintage
The 2020 growing season was marked by the striking contrast between an incredibly rainy winter and a durably dry and often hot summer. A homogeneous and rather thin flowering began in mid-May and led to an early harvest that produced a low crop yield.
The old vines, their vigor favourably slowed by this drought, produced wonderfully deep colored, concentrated and balanced wines. Merlot is intensely aromatic, dense, full and with breed. It rolls over the tongue. It's the Merlot that marks this vintage. The Cabernet Franc, with its small, concentrated berries, produced a smooth-textured wine of amazing complexity. It is flavoursome and has good length of flavour.
De-leafing and bunch selection: from 23rd to 30th July 2020. Harvest: from 14th to 24th September for the Merlot, then on 28th and 29th September for the Cabernet Franc. Yield: 30 hectolitres per hectare. Malo-lactic transformation: from October 19th to November 16th 2020. pH: 3.77. Total acidity: 3.35 g/l (H2SO4).
Blend of the 2020 vintage
- 85 % Merlot
- 15 % Cabernet franc
Shares for this vintage, as recorded on the 2020 technical sheet. The vineyard itself is planted with merlot, cabernet franc, cabernet sauvignon — a vintage blend departs from the area under vine as the year dictates.
Figures from the 2020 sheet
- 14.5 % vol.Alcohol
- 30 hl/haYield
Terroir
Établi sur 14 hectares d'un seul tenant, le vignoble de Vieux Château Certan est l’œuvre de plusieurs siècles de travail et de réflexion minutieuse. Ici, de l'orientation des vignes à la forte densité de plantation, de la répartition des cépages en fonction des sols, aux règles très strictes de taille et de palissage, tout est pensé pour obtenir les plus beaux raisins. Vieux Château Certan bénéficie de sols fertiles. Cela exige en retour une grande attention pour maitriser la vigueur, favoriser la maturité des raisins. Aujourd'hui, les vignes du domaine sont complantés à 60% de Merlot, 30% de Cabernet Franc et 10% de Cabernet sauvignon.
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An offer on Vieux Château Certan 2020
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Texts and documents 2020
The texts below copy in one click for your product sheets, catalogues and social channels. The printable sheet condenses the whole page onto a single A4 page.
Visuals
This wine’s visuals are grouped in the media library. High-definition packshots, labels, back labels and lifestyle photos are reserved for clients and partners, on the Compagnie Médocaine’s VinCod media library.