Best ever for Vinous:
The 2020 Guitard is a gorgeous, exotic wine. Super-ripe dark red cherry, rose petal, mint and blood orange lend notable complexity. This exotic, Cabernet Franc-driven beauty will need a few years to come into its own, but it is gorgeous.
And for Dunnuck:
Lastly, and an incredible wine, the tiny production 2020 Domaine Simon Blanchard Guitard is almost all Cabernet Franc (there's 11% Merlot) brought up in 41% new French oak. It's easily my favorite of the trio, as well as one of the wines of the appellation, and offers a darker ruby/purple hue, notes of cassis, graphite, chalky minerality, violets, and tobacco, full-bodied richness, and building, ultra-fine tannins. An absolutely stunning wine, it should evolve for a solid 10-12 years, if not longer.
And a whopping 96 from China’s very first MW, Lin Liu:
Whole bunch has been introduced in a prudent manner by Simon. The resulting wine is very interesting all in a positive sense. Much amplitude, details and nuances. Nothing dominates the nose or the palate, rather all elements show great harmony. It reminds me of tai chi, lots of energy but transmitted with round movements, powerful but not obvious to see.
But it was really the ecstatic French press, with some critics even rating it above the Cabernet Franc-dominant Cheval Blanc, that made Blanchard’s tiny production of this go so fast.
