Winemaker Notes
The wine is a deep cherry red with garnet highlights. The nose reveals an intense and complex array of aromas on which macerated black fruit mingles with liquorice and cedarwood. On the attack, the creamy, silky mouthfeel combines depth, density and supreme elegance, leading into a rich and smooth mid-palate on blackcurrant and bilberry flavor illuminated by attractive freshness over a rounded refined tannic structure. The harmonious finish is distinguished by lingering fruit flavors and mineral notes.
Blend: 53% Cabernet Sauvignon, 37% Merlot, 8% Cabernet Franc, 2% Petit Verdot.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Exceptional depth of color. The wine is a little closed now, with aromas of black licorice, violets and dark fruit. Quite full-bodied with abundant fine tannins that are fresh and seamless. Long, compact and substantial. There is excellent potential in this. 53% cabernet sauvignon, 36.5% merlot, 8% cabernet franc, 2% petit verdot and 0.5% carmenere.
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Decanter
Subtle, delicate, not shouting but delivering a really nuanced glass of wine with lots of fresh acidity and soft sweetness but also a herbal element giving spiced red fruits in the glass. Feels less serious than d'Armailhac, more upfront and open, but lovely detail too. Soft, such high acidity, really so lifted in the glass, a lovely purity, clean and clear. I love the grippy tannins that almost clean the palate leaving a crushed velvet texture on the tongue with lots of generosity. Super appealing and already very pleasant and pleasing to drink.
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Wine Enthusiast
Rich and smoky, this wine has great presence. Tannins are almost sweet with their roundness, the wine enveloping the structure with the jammy black fruits. The wine will age well. Drink from 2027.
Editors' Choice -
Jeb Dunnuck
The 2020 Château Clerc Milon brings another level of finesse and is a big step up over the Pastourelle. Kirsch, blackberries, graphite, lead pencil shavings, and a crushed stone-like sense of minerality give way to a full-bodied, nicely concentrated, tannic 2020 that's balanced and has terrific purity, followed by a great finish. A serious Pauillac, it warrants 7-8 years of bottle age and will have 20-25+ years of overall prime drinking.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Aromas of dark berries, cigar wrapper, exotic spices and burning embers introduce the 2020 Clerc Milon, a medium to full-bodied, fleshy and layered wine that's seamless, concentrated and refined, with lively acids and a long, saline, violet-inflected finish. A blend of 53% Cabernet Sauvignon, 36% Merlot, 8% Cabernet Franc and the balance Petit Verdot, it's a terrific effort from this clay-limestone terroir that has benefited from so much investment in recent years. Best After 2027.
Rating: 94+ -
Wine Spectator
Sleek and refined, with a very fine-grained structure supporting a core of black currant and black cherry reduction notes along with hints of chalky minerality and sweet tobacco. The long finish has cut and energy, thanks to savory nuance.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: The 2020 Château Clerc Milon is well-built and tightknit on the palate. TASTING NOTES: This wine shines with aromas of generous black fruits and shading of oak. Enjoy it with a pan fried, medium rare Porterhouse Steak. (Tasted: January 27, 2023, San Francisco, CA)
One of the world’s most classic and popular styles of red wine, Bordeaux-inspired blends have spread from their homeland in France to nearly every corner of the New World. Typically based on either Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot and supported by Cabernet Franc, Malbec and Petit Verdot, the best of these are densely hued, fragrant, full of fruit and boast a structure that begs for cellar time. Somm Secret—Blends from Bordeaux are generally earthier compared to those from the New World, which tend to be fruit-dominant.
The leader on the Left Bank in number of first growth classified producers within its boundaries, Pauillac has more than any of the other appellations, at three of the five. Chateau Lafite Rothschild and Mouton Rothschild border St. Estephe on its northern end and Chateau Latour is at Pauillac’s southern end, bordering St. Julien.
While the first growths are certainly some of the better producers of the Left Bank, today they often compete with some of the “lower ranked” producers (second, third, fourth, fifth growth) in quality and value. The Left Bank of Bordeaux subscribes to an arguably outdated method of classification that goes back to 1855. The finest chateaux in that year were judged on the basis of reputation and trading price; changes in rank since then have been miniscule at best. Today producers such as Chateau Pontet-Canet, Chateau Grand Puy-Lacoste, Chateau Lynch-Bages, among others (all fifth growth) offer some of the most outstanding wines in all of Bordeaux.
Defining characteristics of fine wines from Pauillac (i.e. Cabernet-based Bordeaux Blends) include inky and juicy blackcurrant, cedar or cigar box and plush or chalky tannins.
Layers of gravel in the Pauillac region are key to its wines’ character and quality. The layers offer excellent drainage in the relatively flat topography of the region allowing water to run off into “jalles” or streams, which subsequently flow off into the Gironde.