Chateau Sansonnet Grand Cru Classe, Saint-Emilion Grand Cru 2020

A powerful and intense red with blackberry, blueberry and ultra fine chewy tannins. It’s so long and energetic. Dense center palate.

Always a gem in the vintage, the 2020 Château Sansonnet is another winner offering a terrific bouquet of red, black, and blue fruits as well as tobacco, violets, and classy oak. Possessing full-bodied richness, a pure, seamless, polished texture, terrific tannins, and a great finish, this rock star of a Saint-Emilion will benefit from 3-5 years of bottle age and keep for two decades or more.

Deep purple-black colored, the 2020 Sansonnet needs a bit of swirling and coaxing to release its beguiling nose of black cherry preserves, bursting ripe blueberries and stewed plums, with hints of star anise, violets, dark chocolate and cardamom, plus a waft of wood smoke. The rich, decadent, full-bodied palate (15% alcohol) delivers impactful, mouth-coating black fruits, framed by velvety tannins and seamless freshness, finishing with lingering exotic spices notes. This 35+-year-old, 6.96-hectare vineyard is planted to 6,000 vines per hectare on thin clay and limestone soils atop the Saint-Émilion plateau, just across the road from Château Trotte Vieille. This 2020 blend is 95% Merlot, 3% Cabernet Sauvignon and 2% Cabernet Franc, aging for around 16 months in French oak barrels, 80% new.

Sansonnet is once again terrific in 2020. It offers up copious inky dark fruit, chocolate, blackberry jam, spice, mint, licorice and espresso. As always, this is a big, extroverted Saint-Émilion built on richness and texture. The oak needs time to fully integrate, but it always has in the past. Tasted two times.

The 2020 Sansonnet has a powerful nose, ripe black cherries, cassis and pressed violet aromas, and touches of orange zest. It has not the delineation I was hoping for from barrel. The palate is medium-bodied but quite muscular on the entry, though the acidity is well judged, and it obtains more detail and elegance towards the citrus-driven finish. There is a bit of rigidity here that needs to become more malleable with time. Give this 4-5 years in bottle. Tasted twice with consistent notes.