Hosanna 2020

Here the focus is on taut, tight and knitted-down fruit. Keeps its integrity and purity through the palate, so think blueberry and blackcurrant, concentrated but with juice and precision. The underlying flavours are spice box, cigar, gunsmoke, with a texture of slate and crushed stone, showcasing both power and minerality. Overall the feel is architectural - pointed, austere, closed down but extremely precise and impressive. Harvest September 17 to 20, yields around 42hl/ha.Drinking Window 2025 - 2040

75% Merlot, 25% Cabernet Franc. Cask sample. Purity and precision on the nose, the emphasis on the fruit. Blueberry, blackcurrant nuance. Tannins and texture velvety smooth. Freshness in the tannins provides balance but perhaps less lift than 2019. Compact. Clean finish. (JL)Drink 2028 – 2045

(75% M, 25% CF)Distinctly Cabernet Franc floral and subtle to smell, more than most of the Moueix range; full, nicely concentrated, fresh and finely tannic; sweet, subtle, aromatically complex wine, not particularly big, for Pomerol, or for this vintage, but long and linear and fresh and graceful; a great purity of flavor, gently spiced, with a fine length of aftertaste. A more restrained, floral, feminine expression of Pomerol, of great scope and finesse, with notable Cabernet Franc aromatic interest. So fresh, so subtle, if not everybody’s idea of the classic Pomerol. 2030–50+.

The 2020 Hosanna has a wonderful, compelling bouquet of deep and alluring scents of blackberry, raspberry, dried iris and incense, plus a subtle minerally element that becomes more prominent with aeration. The palate is medium-bodied with superb grip and density. The wine just fills the mouth (as banal as that sounds), but it has incredible volume and depth. Clockwork precision on the finish, which maintains great freshness, but this is clearly a Hosanna that will benefit from a decade in the cellar. Drink 2030-2070.

This shows very intense, old-vine character with bark, black mushroom and dark fruit. Full-bodied and creamy with unique flavors of earth and fruit. Layered and soulful. The best Hosanna ever? Merlot and cabernet franc. 45% from old vines, dating from the late 1950s.

Sporting an opaque purple-black color, the 2020 Hosanna gallops out of the glass with bright, vivacious scents of crushed black and red plums, mulberries and redcurrant jelly, leading to underlying scents of powdered cinnamon, lilacs, pencil shavings and damp slate with a hint of wild sage. The medium to full-bodied palate is exquisitely constructed, giving lots of nuanced, tightly wound black fruits and earthy layers with a fine-grained texture and seamless freshness, finishing long and mineral laced. Drink 2026-2052.