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The 2020 Cantenac Brown has been highly praised by critics – and has been released by the international trade for £412 per 12×75

“This is a sophisticated and quite cerebral Margaux in a series of excellent recent releases from the estate,” said Neal Martin (Vinous), who awarded it a barrel range of 94-96 points.

For Antonio Galloni (94-97), this is “an outrageously beautiful wine” that is “shaping up to be one of the wines of the vintage”.

James Suckling (96-97) said that it is, “one of the best ever”.

Lisa Perrotti-Brown MW (The Wine Advocate) gave it (91-93)+, but noted that the wine “slides effortlessly out of the glass”.

Reading on Liv-ex, this wine has been deemed as good value for money – and we have taken an allocation for our syndicates.

As you can see from the graph below, recent vintages of this wine are enjoying higher critic ratings year on year.

Alter Ego is the second wine at Chateau Palmer in Margaux. We have seen that a selection of ‘Super Seconds’ have started receive a cult following – and Alter Ego is one of those wines on that radar.

Although at time of writing, our benchmark critic Neal Martin has not scored this wine as Palmer did not send samples abroad, the wine has received solid scores from other critics.

Palmer adopt bio-dynamic practices – and production was hit again in 2020 by mildew pressure and the drought. Stock released is low and this is a wine which sees high demand.

Therefore we have taken small allocations here.

Pavie was released today, being offered to the UK market for £2,890 per dozen, 3.3% less than the 2019 was on release (£2,990) but up 6.7% on the 2019’s current Market Price of £2,707.

One of the famed wines of Saint Emilion, just around the corner from Angelus, this wine has certainly received high praise from the critics.

James Suckling awarded the wine 99-100 points, saying: “The intensity and verve of this wine promises true greatness.”

Jane Anson at Decanter meanwhile scored it 97, noting: “The Cabernets dominate the blend on the aromatics, and you can really see they are moving the needle on the architecture and sculpting of this wine.”

We were initially interested in looking at this wine for investment purposes – however, looking at the performance of this wine since 2014, not one of the vintages has increased in value.

We believe there will be many other better buys in this campaign, so we will politely decline our allocations here.