La Tour Melas – La Tour Melas 2020

At the origin of La Tour Melas lies a wager: Kyros Melas, businessman and lover of Château Lafleur, bet a Swiss banking colleague over a dinner in Zurich that he could produce a wine in Greece on a par with the Pomerol star. From 2000/2001 he planted vines from France in Achinos in Fthiotida, a region without any established winegrowing tradition – a deliberate Bordeaux implant. At the "Judgment of Athens" around 2015, La Tour Melas is said to have placed ahead of Château Lafleur in a blind tasting; there is, however, no independent record of this, and the estate itself puts it cautiously, saying the bet has "not yet been won." At any rate, the Swiss never paid – his argument being that French wines age better. I have now put the wager to the test myself, tasting the 2020 alongside the Château Trotte Vieille 2020, a Premier Grand Cru Classé from Saint-Émilion. This duel in fact has something of a tradition within this family of wines: in 2024 I pitted the 2019, then five years old, against the Château La Gaffelière 2019 and rated it 94 points.

The estate's Grand Vin grows on terraces near Achinos at around 200 metres, just about two kilometres from the Gulf of Euboea, on clay and limestone with alluvial gravels; the evening sea breeze cools the vines and preserves acidity. The work is biodynamic, albeit without certification. The 2020 is a blend of 60% Cabernet Franc and 40% Merlot – in the 2019 and 2021 vintages it was 65/35 in each case – fermented with wild yeasts in open vessels, with malolactic fermentation in barrel, then aged around 22 months in mostly new French barriques and bottled unfined and unfiltered, at 30 hl/ha yield and 14.5% alcohol. As the estate confirmed to me, only 4,700 bottles of the 2020 vintage exist. The label, incidentally, shows a historic view of Echinos after Edward Dodwell, whose generation of travellers, between 1801 and 1806, first brought Fthiotida into the picture at all – the great illustrated folio works of the 18th century remained Athens-centred, and for Echinos, Dodwell's plate is, as far as one can tell, the only historical pictorial record.

As a vintage, 2020 is regarded in central Greece as an outstandingly fresh year. Panos Zoumboulis speaks of a "Vintage of Perfect Harmony": moderate weather without extremes, phenolic ripeness with preserved acidity, a long, almost leisurely harvest.

In the glass the nose is truly beguiling, floral and fruity, with blackberry – once again a clear notch above the 2019. On the palate, fine reductive notes and a grippy tannin that, however, breaks off a touch too quickly: it does leave a slightly astringent trace behind, but lacks a little pull, which in the final third leads to a somewhat flat impression. The finish, by contrast, is back on very fine form, with lovely smoky notes on the second finish and sloe. A quite outstanding Bordeaux from the Right Bank.

The duel ends 95:95 – the Greek achieves exactly the score of the Premier Grand Cru Classé. All the less can I understand why the Decanter World Wine Awards 2026 gave the 2020 merely bronze with 89 points; at a competition that awards so broadly, though, that is a weak signal. Jamie Goode rated the neighbouring vintages, 2016 at 93 and 2022 at 94.

A genuinely successful experiment, then. The potential for 96, 97, perhaps even 98 points is quite clearly there at this estate – coming vintages will show it. The 2020 itself no longer requires any patience; it can already be drunk now. In Germany it costs 119 euros, putting it even above the Trotte Vieille – somewhat pricey for what you get, since a Greek Cabernet Sauvignon of comparable quality can be found for half or a third of the money. Rarity does put that into perspective, though: of the Trotte Vieille, by the estate's own account, around 29,000 bottles of the Grand Vin were filled in the same vintage – a good six times the 4,700 that exist of the La Tour Melas. But as a lover of Bordeaux and equally as a lover of Greek wines, one should certainly drink this wine at least once. 95 points.