If you ever catch the train into Saint-Emilion, you’ll notice that it runs through the heart of the region’s vines. Just behind the station, on the outskirts of the village, lies Ch. Haut-Simard – an unassuming property that just happens to be owned by the Vauthiers – the same family that is behind Ch. Ausone, one of the region’s most famous estates. Over 15 years after the Vauthier family took over the estate, it’s emerging from the shadows – proving just how good a site it is.  Ch. Simard and Haut-Simard – both owned by the Vauthier family today – were once part of the same property, which dates back to the 16th century, named by the Simard family in 1865. When the railway line between Libourne and Bergerac was built in 1870, it ran straight through the vineyards and divided the estate in two. The railway slices across the foot of the slopes of Saint-Emilion, neatly dividing two different terroirs. North of the railway line lies Haut-Simard with more clay and limestone, while the larger Simard lies to the south on sandier soils.   In 1917, the four hectares of the original Haut-Simard were purchased by Leonard and Charlotte Gratadoux. They built a new house and cellar in 1929 – which is still in use today. Claude “Coco” Mazière – Edouard Vauthier’s great-uncle – bought the winery and 10 hectares of vineyard in 1954, the original Haut-Simard and a slice of Simard. Gradually he acquired the rest of the Simard estate and expanded Haut-Simard, with the two estates growing to 50 hectares in total – and, although the two wines were long made separately, from the 1990s Mazière put all the fruit into Ch. Simard.  Great-uncle Coco managed the estates through to his death in 2008. “He passed away almost in his office,” Edouard tells me – emphasising how Mazière worked almost obsessively to the end of his days. When he died, Alain Vauthier – Edouard’s father, who was already responsible for Ch. Ausone, Ch. Moulin Saint-Georges and Ch. de Fonbel – inherited the Simard estate.  “Look at the maps of the soil and look at where Ch. Haut-Simard is, it’s sand, a little bit of clay and a little bit of limestone – it’s a terroir totally suitable for Cabernet Franc,” Edouard explains. “When you dig a little bit, you realise the water table is 10-15 metres below. It’s very deep and very good soil that can produce a great wine.” Indeed, look at the property’s neighbours and you’ll find some illustrious names: Canon-la-Gaffelière, La Gaffelière, Pavie and Larcis-Ducasse are all a stone’s throw away. Haut-Simard may be a mere seven or eight metres above sea-level, but it’s enough to separate it from the flood plain where much of Simard sits.  Realising the potential, Alain decided to separate Simard and Haut-Simard once more (re-introduced from the 2008 vintage) and set about an extensive replanting program for the 10 hectares of Haut-Simard, putting in swathes of high-density (12,600 vines per hectare) Cabernet Franc in 2008, 2009 and 2010. Where the Haut-Simard vines once had around 80-85% Merlot, now 70% of the vineyard is dedicated to Cabernet Franc – focusing on quality rather than quantity.  Little has changed in the winery since it was built in 1929, and the team still uses the original concrete tanks. The fruit is all picked by hand, with density sorting now routinely used, spending around 20 days on skins, with délestage (rack and return) favoured over punch-downs/pump-overs to allow for gentle extraction. Once pressed off, the wine spends around 14 months maturing in around 20-30% one-year-old barrels and the rest in concrete.  As so much of the vineyard was ripped out, volumes were tiny in the Vauthiers’ first few vintages. Fruit from the young vines started being introduced from 2014 and the blend has continued to shift, with the 2022 the first to contain 70% Cabernet Franc. “It changed totally the game,” Edouard says – explaining how they’re finally seeing the fruits of their labours. Even now, only 2,500 cases are produced each year.  For Edouard, the Merlot on sandier parcels brings notes of strawberry, while on limestone it adds liquorice, complementing the Cabernet Franc’s dark fruit and green bell pepper. That dark fruit has built with each vintage as the new plantings come into the blend and vines mature, lending additional texture and structure. The average age in the vineyard is just 15-16 years now, only set to offer more as it matures. This might be a modest wine, but it’s one that has more than enough capacity to age. “I’m sure it will last 15 years with no problem,” says Edouard.   Tasting through a handful of vintages, it’s amazing to see the evolution of the Haut-Simard style -from the more solid 2016 through to the linear, bright, elegant 2022. It’s a wine that has impressed us en primeur for the last couple of years too – punching far above its weight.   Tasting Ch. Haut-Simard  2016 Ch. Haut-Simard: Plummy, sweet and round, this is full-bodied and concentrated, with real density to the fruit on the palate. It’s fresh, with a saline finish, yet there’s a solidity to this, not having the precision, brightness and aromatics of more recent vintages. Blend: 65% Merlot, 35% Cabernet Franc  2018 Ch. Haut-Simard: The nose of the 2018 Haut-Simard is instantly more expressive than the 2016 – combining red fruit and an herbaceous note with a toasty sweetness. It’s more linear on the palate. The intense core of fruit is rich and tightly packed, framed by grainy tannins at this relatively youthful stage. The finish is long and savoury, with a hint of blackcurrant leaf. Blend: 70% Merlot, 30% Cabernet Franc  2019 Ch. Haut-Simard: Floral, lifted and aromatic – the 2019 Haut-Simard is a world away from the previous vintage. Dainty berry fruit – blackcurrants and redcurrants – lead to an elegant, fine-boned palate. It’s precise and juicy, lithe and balanced with fine, chalky tannins. Blend: 60% Cabernet Franc, 40% Merlot  2022 Ch. Haut-Simard: The 2022 is the unashamed star of our mini-vertical of Haut-Simard, and the vintage Edouard Vauthier points to as a fulcrum point for the estate. The nose is sweet and bright, packed with seamless red berry fruit, along with hints of florals and pencil shavings. It is the palate that is so striking, however, driven and long, linear with graphite-etched tannins and mouthwatering acidity. Vibrant, pinpoint and very, very good – especially for the price. Blend: 70% Cabernet Franc, 30% Merlot  2024 Ch. Haut-Simard: The nose is perfumed, with intense cherries and lifted florals. There’s a lush intensity to the palate, with a mineral line that sup ports the fruit and complements the bright acidity. There’s lovely concentration here with fine tannins that provide a fine-boned framework. 12.7% and 3.74pH. Blend: 80% Cabernet Franc, 20% Merlot [tasted en primeur, May 2025]   Explore all current listings of Ch. Haut-Simard or read more about Bordeaux   

The Vauthier family may be most famous for Ch. Ausone, but they own several estates on the Right Bank. Over the last 15 years, Ch. Haut-Simard has seen particular investment. We sat down with Edouard Vauthier to talk about the property’s transformation – one that you can now taste in the glass 

Over the last 15 years, the Vauthier family has invested significantly in Haut-Simard. We sat down with Edouard Vauthier to talk about the evolution underway 

Change at Ch. Haut-Simard – the Vauthier family estate 

Shifting gears at Ch. Haut-Simard   

After the elegance of 2018 and the power of 2019, the 2020 vintage in Montalcino had a lot to live up to.  As Cerbaiona’s Matthew Fioretti told me, “On paper, it looks like a good vintage.” Statistically speaking, the median temperature was good, the rainfall plentiful without being excessive – it looks perfect. But the year was much trickier than those numbers suggest, and one that tested producers.  For Castiglion del Bosco’s Cecilia Leoneschi, it was the first vintage where she really felt the effects of climate change in Montalcino – with 64 days without a drop of water over the summer, something she’d never seen before. It was, she emphasised, a vintage that varied significantly across the appellation – especially between lower and higher altitudes – as was reinforced by our conversations about the year.  Nicola Vaglini (Pieve Santa Restituta) emphasised how important rain in the preceding winter was, replenishing water reserves, which were topped up by additional spring showers. The season started with even budbreak in temperate conditions. Frost hit in late March – striking northern parts of the region most acutely (Vaglini reported losing 15% in some sites), although most escaped unscathed.  The season continued, satisfyingly uneventful, until July, when the weather shifted. It became very warm, with spikes of heat – reaching 38 and even 40°C. In these brief but powerful heatwaves, the vines shut down and development stalled. Fioretti noted how he saw base leaves drop, meaning the grapes were no longer shielded from the full force of the sun. Despite the heat, Poggio di Sotto’s Leonardo Berti commented how relieved he was that temperatures didn’t hit over 40-41°C, as has now become relatively normal in Castelnuovo dell’Abate – a mark of the changing climate.  In among these heatwaves were sudden downpours – rain that fell hard and fast, with up to 100mm falling over three hours, arriving too quickly for the soils to absorb meaningfully, and causing flooding issues (at Cerbaiona, they were left with 20cm of water in one of their cellars). This is one of the reasons why, Fioretti argues, the year’s statistics are so misleading. Although there was technically an average volume of rainfall, the conditions meant that it was – at Cerbaiona – effectively a drought year, because so little made it to the vines’ roots.  Leoneschi explained how at Castiglion del Bosco, they are increasingly using cover crops to help retain water in the vineyard. They generally have less rain – shielded by Mount Amiata on one side and coastal winds coming from the opposite direction – but didn’t see major water stress in 2020. At Poggio di Sotto, Leonardo Berti commented that 2020 provided just the right quantity and quality of rain, falling at times that didn’t disrupt work in the vineyard.   The weather cooled off in late August, with rain falling at the end of the month. At Poggio di Sotto, they’ve been using a clay spray (zeolite) for several years – spraying the canopy to help protect the leaves against rain in the run-up to harvest, something Berti noted was particularly helpful in 2020. Lower-altitude sites saw more rain versus those higher up the region’s slopes. Cecilia Leoneschi explained how the diurnal shift in the final stage of the growing season was key to the vintage for her, allowing the fruit to ripen fully.   Mid-September saw heavier rain – and this provides a divide in terms of harvest dates, with some choosing to pick before and others after. At Poggio di Sotto, where harvest is always early, they started bringing fruit in around 4th September – relatively late for them, Berti explained, as the cooler August weather had slowed ripening by around a week. Nicola Vaglini reported a wave of warmer weather from 5th to 15th September, with rapid sugar accumulation in the grapes, and they started to harvest on 15th. At both Cerbaiona and Castiglion del Bosco, the harvest commenced on 20th September, while some producers – such as Casanova di Neri – held out even longer.   Cerbaiona’s Fioretti emphasised how important it was to manage yields in 2020, with it being all too easy to over-crop and have green tannins. Most producers agreed that multiple passes were essential this year. At Castiglion del Bosco, Leoneschi explained how even within the same plot they were harvesting vines up to 12 days apart – reflecting the stress of the season.  By early October, all the fruit was in the winery, and most producers said sorting was key – whether by hand or machine, to remove any sunburnt or shrivelled grapes, especially those that also may not have ripened fully.   The risk was potentially high alcohol and hard tannins, from the heat of the year. Extraction was a focus of winemakers’ efforts in the winery – being careful not to overwork the must. At Cerbaiona, Fioretti emphasised how a three-day cold soak helped bring out “the exuberance of the fruit”, and he kept the fermentation at a cool maximum of 26°C, moving it as little as possible, and taking it off the skins as soon as it was dry (after just seven to 10 days).   By contrast, Leonardo Berti opted for a long but gentle extraction – allowing the wine to stay on its skins for 50-55 days, only wetting the cap as needed during that period; an opposite approach to 2019 where he could pump over as much as he wanted, such was the phenolic ripeness. At Castiglion del Bosco, Leoneschi noted how she used bâtonnage to build complexity (not structure), stirring the fine lees after malolactic to create a fine and elegant, but not full wine.  For Berti (Poggio di Sotto), he kept their 2020 Brunello in cask for three years (the norm for them, two years is the legal minimum), while a vintage like 2019 spent an additional 10 months in wood. Many producers seemed to stick to the minimum 24 months in oak, wanting to capture the wines’ fruit and freshness as much as possible. Some feel that even that is too long – a sentiment echoed in other parts of Italy when it comes to cask ageing (such as Barolo), with producers suggesting that these minimum requirements are no longer compatible with the climate and style of wines being produced today.  Despite the heat, the 2020s seem to have surprised producers – offering more freshness than they might have expected. It is clear that the best are open and approachable wines, with plenty of fruit and freshness – although this isn’t consistent across the region.  For Fioretti, the vintage doesn’t quite reach greatness – the phenolics limiting it, not quite having the finesse of the best years. That said, the resulting wine is open and fruit-forward, with moderate, sweet tannins, giving great pleasure already; it is, as he says, “good to go” – a modest appraisal of a fantastic wine this year.  Berti at Poggio di Sotto describes 2020 as “a compromise between the elegance of 2018 and the power of 2019” – and more approachable than either. He thinks perhaps it’s closest to the legendary 2016, not quite as structured, but with more elegance and immediacy. Both Vaglini and Giacomo Neri (Casanova di Neri) suggested the vintage is a blend of 2015 and 2016, with finesse, elegance and expressive bouquets, as well as good acidity. Leoneschi echoed this, emphasising the precision and density of aromatics, but added that 2020 is a particularly terroir-driven year – one where site speaks louder than the producer.  The 2020 vintage doesn’t reach the absolute heights of a year like 2016, and it’s important to be selective. The best wines, however, have an immediate charm and elegance that – as Fioretti said – should not be underestimated. These are still serious wines. Giacomo Neri perhaps put it best, describing 2020 as “an underdog vintage” – one that is set to surprise people over the next two decades.  Explore all current 2020 Brunello di Montalcino listings or read more about Italy 

The epitome of fine Sangiovese, Brunello di Montalcino has rapidly become a staple for collectors. As the latest vintage is released, Sophie Thorpe caught up with some of the region’s top producers to dive into the 2020 growing season and the wines it produced 

We talk to top producers about the 2020 vintage in Brunello di Montalcino and the elegant, open wines the year produced 

Discover the 2020 vintage in Brunello di Montalcino 

Brunello di Montalcino 2020: vintage overview 

Leonardo Bussoletti

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