Champagne | 2020 vintage
Let’s start with our traditional reminder. It is important to remember the two following things when assessing the most recent vintage of Champagne. The first thing to bear in mind is that the large majority of the Champagne bottles consumed are not vintage wines but are a result of blending wines from many different vintages. These blends, created according to the respective qualities of the varieties used, are supposed to bring an almost constant parity of flavours between the domain’s releases. Therefore, the qualities (or the lack thereof) of a single vintage do not determine how good the end product will be. The second thing is that Champagne is a sparkling wine and there are only two ways to judge the true quality of a vintage. Either the current year’s still wines are tasted a few months after vinification before the wines go through their second vinification process (but this does not give a complete overview of the finished product), or the wine can be tasted at the end of a vintage Champagne’s production cycle which is long after the grapes were harvested.
2020 was gruelling for the Champagne winemakers, although it was a little less extreme than 2019. Everything started under a blanket of rain in Champagne with a very wet start to the winter (February was the wettest ever recorded in the region). But spring quickly came, and the nice weather saw early budbreak for all the varieties from the start of April. Some hailstorms at the end of April ravaged nearly 350 hectares in the area around Château Thierry. Flowering occurred in favourable conditions at the end of May. After a dull June, a lengthy period without much rain set in from July until the end of September. The total rainfall for July and August was only 37.9 mm, noticeably less than the previous record for 1964 and 2018. The heat also punished the vines, especially in August, when scalding led to a loss of about 10% of the harvest.
Tasting 2020’s still wines revealed powerful, rich, expressive and fruity nectars which retained a beautiful freshness. The alcohol percentages were raised but were generally not as high as those seen in 2019.
