Based on 62% Cabernet Sauvignon and 38% Merlot, the deep purple-hued 2020 Château Cos D'Estournel has, dare I say, an almost Lafite-like sense of elegance and class, offering gorgeous cassis and darker currants fruits as well as tobacco, lead pencil, acacia flowers, and graphite. Hitting 13.46 alcohol, with a pH of 3.9 and an IPT of 80, this flawless, full-bodied, incredibly elegant Saint-Estèphe has silky tannins, perfect balance, and a great, great finish. It will need a decade of cellaring to hit its prime drink window. Of the trilogy of 2018, 2019, and 2020, it's clearly my favorite (that's splitting hairs), with a similarity to the 2016, and will most likely merit another point at maturity.

The 2020 Cos d'Estournel is a wine of extreme elegance. Silky and light on its feet, the 2020 is incredibly nuanced. In fact it is without question the most finessed of all the top wines in Saint- Estèphe, showing more in common with some of its neighbors in the north of Pauillac than the more potent wines of Saint-Estèphe. Impossibly soft, silky tannins wrap around a core of dark red fruit, spice and orange zest. The 2020 is not a huge Cos, but rather a wine for readers who appreciate elegance over power. I can't wait to see how it ages. Magnificent.

This wine's complex structure and powerful tannins are shot through with freshness. It is already impressive, the spice and black fruits in harmony with the texture. The wine will age well. Drink from 2027.

A broad, rich, enticing wine, built on a core of exotic mulberry and loganberry notes laced with black tea, spices and incense. Rounded through the finish, with the fruit cruising through under a suave gloss of toast. A real crowd-pleaser, with a luxurious feel that makes this hard to lay off of now. Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. Drink now through 2038. 13,000 cases made, 2,000 cases imported.

The 2020 Cos d'Estournel is a bold, demonstrative wine, bursting with aromas of cassis, dark berries and plum liqueur mingled with exotic spices, burning embers and petals, framed by a generous application of creamy new oak. Full-bodied, broad and low acid/high pH in style, it's rich and extracted, with a layered, mid-palate and a long, clove-inflected finish. While it isn't anywhere near as extreme as the 2009, the 2020 does appear to mark a move back toward a more turbo-charged style after Cos d'Estournel's shift toward elegance, exemplified by the brilliant 2016-but perhaps that's merely an illusion created by the vintage?