Winemaker Notes
Blend: 54% Merlot, 46% Cabernet Sauvignon
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Owned by the Cazes family of Lynch-Bages in Pauillac, this is a fine wine that continues the backbone of this estate. With its tannins firmly in place, sustaining the black plum skin flavors, the wine has fine medium-term potential.
Barrel Sample: 92-94 -
Decanter
Blueberry, raspberry and cassis, there is concentration but also juice. Merlot-dominant (following a restructuring of the vineyard to better align grapes with terroir) with bite and freshness. A lovely smoky edge here, this is another successful vintage for Ormes de Pez. 4% Petit Verdot completes the blend. 3.69ph. 45% new oak. A yield of 42hl/ha which was not as low here as at Lynch Bages because of more clay in the soils, and because the Merlot was less impacted by the drought than the Cabernet Sauvignon.
Barrel Sample: 93 -
Jeb Dunnuck
A blend of 54% Merlot, 38% Cabernet Sauvignon, and the rest Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot, the 2020 Chateau Ormes De Pez offers up a great perfume of red and black currants, sweet tobacco, sandalwood, and spice. Medium to full-bodied on the palate, with ripe tannins and good overall balance, it's another terrific 2020 that offers pleasure even today yet will evolve for 15+ years if well stored. Best After 2023.
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James Suckling
Bitter chocolate, blackberries, dried mint and tobacco leaves on the nose. Firm and linear, with a medium body and tight tannins. Tangy acidity. Sharp and clear cut. 54% merlot, the highest percentage ever, the rest cabernet sauvignon with a touch of petit verdot. Better in 2025.
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Wine Spectator
Fresh and direct, with lilac and savory notes running with a core of damson plum and red cherry coulis. Reveals a piercing iron note on the sneaky long finish. Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Aromas of sweet cherries, berries and spices framed by creamy new oak, introduce the 2020 Ormes de Pez, a medium to full-bodied, ample and fleshy wine that's polished and seamless, with a generous core of fruit and an extroverted, charming profile. Best after 2023.
Chateau Ormes de Pez has very homogenous soil (a clay gravel mixture typical of Saint-Estephe) and many of the vines are quite old. The grapes are hand-picked. After selecting the vats and blending, the wine is aged in oak barrels for 15 months in a magnificent cellar overlooking the courtyard.
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.
Deeply colored, concentrated, and distinctive, St. Estephe is the go-to for great, age-worthy and reliable Bordeaux reds. Separated from Pauillac merely by a stream, St. Estephe is the farthest northwest of the highest classed villages of the Haut Medoc and is therefore subject to the most intense maritime influence of the Atlantic.
St. Estephe soils are rich in gravel like all of the best sites of the Haut Medoc but here the formation of gravel over clay creates a cooler atmosphere for its vines compared to those in the villages farther downstream. This results in delayed ripening and wines with higher acidity compared to the other villages.
While they can seem a bit austere when young, St. Estephe reds prove to live very long in the cellar. Traitionally dominated by Cabernet Sauvignon, many producers now add a significant proportion of Merlot to the blend, which will soften any sharp edges of the more tannic, Cabernet.
The St. Estephe village contains two second growths, Chateau Montrose and Cos d’Estournel.