L'Enclos Tourmaline 2020 (750ML)

97 JS / 97 JD / 96 WCI / 94-96 VM / 95 WI / 93 WA

#93 James Suckling's Top 100 Wines of France 2023

This is pure merlot, with black chocolate, bark, black truffle, ripe plum, and violets. Some black olives. This is very structured and linear with super fine tannins that run very, very long. Dense silky texture. Less than 3,000 bottles made. 1.1 hectares in total. Needs five to six years of bottle age. Try after 2027. -JamesSuckling.com

The 2020 Enclos Tourmaline comes from a 1-hectare parcel previously owned by Château La Patache before being purchased by Hong Kong-based financier Peter Kwok in 2012. This parcel is located directly across from Château Clinet and is 100% Merlot planted in classic Pomerol clay soils. It's an insanely good 2020, revealing a deep ruby/purple hue as well as notes of black raspberries, cassis, toasted spices, iron, and flowery incense. Deep, full-bodied, plush, and wonderfully textured, with ripe tannins, this blockbuster beauty brings incredible richness and intensity yet is seamless, elegant, and graceful. It's a true “Wow” Pomerol. It already offers pleasure today yet should benefit from 3-5 years of bottle age and cruise in cold cellars over the following two decades. It's clearly in the same realm as the 2019, 2018, and 2016. Tasted twice.-Jeb Dunnuck

Deeply colored, this is a wine perfectly balanced between its intensity, opulence, concentration is flamboyant character. The nose, with its open display of flowers, chocolate, licorice, espresso, spice, dark red pit fruits and truffles is intoxicating. But, that is only the start. It is the velvety, opulent, richness with cashmere tannins and its wealth of sweet, ripe, fruits, chocolate, and spice that steal the show! The luxurious finish hits all the right notes and keeps on going. The only problem is finding any as the production of this 100% Merlot wine is only 200 cases produced. So, if you want it, jump on it, prices are not going to be lower. Drink from 2025-2050.-Jeff Leve, Wine Cellar Insider

The 2020 Enclos Tourmaline was picked on September 16 at 32hl/ha and matured entirely in new oak. It has a chiseled bouquet, beautifully defined and focused, unfurling gradually to reveal blackberry, blueberry, crushed rock and light violet aromas. There is a sense of "weightlessness" about these aromatics. The palate is medium-bodied with fine tannins, very sapid and saline, a Pomerol that is keen to get the juices flowing even at this early stage. This has wonderful poise and precision. Perhaps one of the best Enclos Tourmaline vintages that I have tasted since its inception. Highly recommended. Just 2,400 bottles produced.-Neal Martin, Vinous Media

The deep garnet-purple colored 2020 Enclos Tourmaline is quite closed to begin. After coaxing, it explodes with baked plums, blackberry pie, and boysenberry preserves scents, followed by wafts of tar, licorice, and lavender. Full-bodied, the palate is laden with bright, juicy black fruits, supported by plush tannins, finishing long and perfumed.-Lisa Perrotti-Brown, Wine Independent

A broad, ripe, expressive wine, the 2020 Enclos Tourmaline offers up aromas of cherries and plums mingled with licorice and toasty new oak, followed by a medium to full-bodied, expansive, fleshy palate. This is a rich, broad-shouldered wine from holdings on the plateau respectively located between Le Pin and Trotanoy, opposite Clinet, and opposite the château of La Fleur-Pétrus. - William Kelley, Wine Advocate