99pts James Suckling
Blackberry and plum character with chocolate, too. Oyster shell. Full and very firm with a linear sensibility. Tight and powerful. Very pure fruit. Tension and energy there. Polished tannins. Some coffee bean and chocolate. Give this at least five or six years. 60% merlot and 40% cabernet franc. Try after 2028.
99pts Wine Enthusiast
This wine brings together all the best elements of the vintage. It shows concentrated tannins laced with a velvety texture and a sustained intensity of black fruits. It shows a strong mineral element in the texture that gives complexity and a fine edge at the end. Obviously, it's a wine for long-term aging.
98pts Vinous
The 2020 Angélus is shaping up to be tremendous. Bright and punchy, with terrific energy, the 2020 is more linear and focused that any recent vintages I can remember tasting. Crushed red berry fruit, iron, smoke, mint, chalk and dried herbs all build in the glass. In 2020, Angélus is less flashy that it can be. That is a good thing for those who can wait. One of the major evolutions here in recent years has been the use of foudres to age the Cabernet Franc. Half of the Franc is now raised in large format oak, and that seems to be bringing added freshness to the Grand Vin.
98pts Jeb Dunnuck
The flagship from this great estate, the 2020 Château Angelus checks in as 60% Merlot and 40% Cabernet Franc that spent 22 months in new barrels. It’s darker and more concentrated compared to the 2019, offering beautiful, medium to full-bodied aromas and flavors of redcurrants, black raspberries, sandalwood, spring flowers, and smoked tobacco. With just about flawless balance, it's not the blockbuster style of a decade ago, but it has gorgeous purity, ultra-fine tannins, a round, seamless mouthfeel, and a great, great finish. It's very much in the classic, balanced, structured style of the vintage, and a solid 7-8 years of bottle age are recommended. It will have 30+ years of prime drinking.
97pts Decanter
A deep and rich nose, but so pure, clear and clean, it smells beautiful. The aromas really shine in the glass, too, with a texture that is smooth and supple, giving and generous. A powerful wine with excellent persistence from start to finish. Extremely youthful, tense and focused into one sleek line and, although you get ripe fruit – black berries, cassis, with some gorgeous bitter orange peel nuances – there’s so much minty freshness too. Concentration but no overt heaviness, discreet power. I love the chalky, milk chocolate nuances – well built and complex with a clear backbone and long ageing potential. Brilliant winemaking on show.
97pts Wine Advocate
The 2020 Angélus has turned out superbly and underlines this estate's continuing shift to a more elegant, integrated style that offers a purer expression of its terroir. A blend of 60% Merlot and 40% Cabernet Franc, it unwinds in the glass with aromas of cherries, wild berries, rose petals, mint and subtle hints of licorice, followed by a medium to full-bodied, beautifully layered and vibrant palate that's deep, precise and penetrating, concluding with a mouthwateringly chalky finish.
History
The vineyard of Chateau Angélus is situated in a natural amphitheatre overlooked by the three Saint-Emilion churches. In the middle of this special site, the sounds were amplified and the angelus bells could be heard ringing in the morning, at midday and in the evening. They cadenced the working day in the vineyards and villages, calling the men and women to stop their labours for a few minutes and pray.
Less than a kilometre from the famous Saint-Emilion bell tower, situated on the much-vaunted south-facing “foot of the hill”, Angélus has been the life work of eight generations of the Boüard de Laforest family.
In the first-ever classification of Saint-Emilion wines in 1954, Chateau Angélus was a Grand Cru Classé. Already at the time, it benefitted from a solid reputation, which helped it survive the Bordeaux wine crisis of 1973 and take part in the oenological renewal of the 1980’s. This was the context in which Hubert de Boüard de Laforest, a graduate oenologist from Bordeaux University, took advantage of this marvellous wine’s illustrious past, while being resolutely turned towards the future and launched and continued to implement an ambitious, innovative policy in favour of achieving excellence in wine growing and making.
