Thoughts on Spottswoode 2020? AG from Vinous gives it an 88. Joe Z from Wine Advocate gives is 98-10. That’s a 10-12 point spread.
Other than trying it, what is everyone’s thoughts on 2020?
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My palate aligns with AG more than almost any other critic. He’s not shy about calling a wine what it is and hands out far fewer 100 pt’ers than most others, so it brings a lot more credibility to his scores, IMO.
If he’s calling it an 88, hard to look the other way when I’m sure Suckling had this at a 99.
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I had it last week at the winery, it’s another great Spottswoode wine. Maybe they didn’t pay the $20K for AG’s advance rating system?
When tasted at the winery it was only open for maybe 90 minutes and was clearly far too young to be drinking. I drank the rest of the bottle 26-29 hours later and the wine drastically changed for the better.
I bought 15 bottles and a magnum.
Here is my trip review: Napa Trip report February 2023. Cathiard, Sodaro, Vineyardist, Beta-Jasud, Cardinale, Robert Craig, Neal, Del Detto & Spottswoode
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AG gave the entire vintage a 70 so I’ll apply 2-3pts of std dev to his score on this one, I can’t imagine this wine being less than 90pts. I’ve been building a vertical of SW since 13, so I’ll be securing a couple. Just a reminder, if you didn’t participate in 17, you got bumped from allocation in 18 unless you combo bought (18 & 17) I have to assume the same protocol will apply for the 21s.
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I’m with Jeff above. I have tasted it (twice now), and it was an excellent wine. Not sure it rivals any of the classics from this estate but is a very good wine in a challenging vintage to say the least. My 100pt scale is not as generous as most reviewers including Galloni (I have drank tons of 100pt wines and only a handful i agreed with the score)
I would rate this a solid 93-94 not any higher but definitely disagree with 88…
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I tasted the Spottswoode 2020 last week along with Dalla Valle 2020 and VHR 2020, the vintage in general is a little behind 2018/2019. Tannins seemed much ‘softer’ than what AG seem to mention and I could not understand the scores he gave. I plan to buy Spottswoode 2020 and DV 2020 (I do represent them in QC), both are high quality. In general I have the top wines around 95 points vs more 96-98 for 2018/2019. Only Dominus disappointed me on my recent trip, which I do plan to write about soon. I have no idea how @Jeff_M1 gets these reports out so fast!
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I take notes on my iPhone during tasting visits, email them to myself then add the pictures and try to clean up the gibberish note taking as best as possible. The pictures I posted took me the longest to email to myself and upload to WB.
Some of my visits had less notes and that’s probably because I didn’t write much down.
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you are better than me, I am old school and like to write everything down. I will pump out this report in the next week if the 2 year old sleeps long enough haha
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Most likely the two reviewers tasted them at different times - and perhaps in different settings? How long after bottling did each try them? Were they tried at the winery or in the comfort of their own homes? Were the wines decanted by the winery before presenting?
Too many variables to make any further judgements IMO
Cheers
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Fwiw it’s worth AG gave low scores to the Dalla Valle line up too; at least he was consistent!
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I have no problem with any reviewer, giving any specific wine any score. When we start comparing reviewers and scores is where the problems arise. We need to understand the context in which they are tasting and make sure that we are talking apples to apples.
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Why not just upload straight to WB from your phone?
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I’ll just say, Jeff and I apparently have a few things in common 
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Tasted Maya 2020… it is not 89. Will be interesting when James Molesworth (WS) gives his scores since he is the only one who tastes blind (in theory)
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Did Spottswoode pay the Vinous Premium that year? Maybe they stopped 
Great to hear you enjoyed them. Personally my view is producers have way more to lose releasing so-so product once they are in those price points then maintaining sales for a year. So I take the view that’s it’s worth trusting them and giving them a chance. I’m optimistic they’ll be nice, maybe not the best vintage ever, but seriously what ever is? We all want to taste vintage so let’s see what ‘20 offers from top producers confident enough to offer up some wines. As far as I see it, ball is in their court.
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Agree, also to just ignore the noise. The 2020 reviews were not justified at all, multiple remarks were made regarding the tannins, yet I found them ‘softer’ than say 2021. If a reviewer feels the wines are faulty or are in a dumb phase then revisit them in a few months.
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Agree 100%. Critics destroyed the 2011 vintage. Yet I just tasted a Favia Cerro Sur 2011 which was put up against a Hillside Select 2012. The 2011 stood at a similar level to the 2012 Hillside Select. Time will tell, however I am still buying 2020 whatever AG writes next
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Wanted to make sure I placed the pics correctly and preview the post before I hit post.
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