The aromas to this are really amazing, with a potpourri of spices and dried flowers, as well as redcurrants, sweet plums and even some peaches. Full-bodied with layers of ripe fruit and ultra-fine tannins that spread across the palate in an encompassing yet always elegant and pure way. It’s succulent and unadulterated. Like crushed, perfectly ripened grapes. The length is rather endless. The tannins build. Fabulous young red. 35% in amphora and the rest in 50% new oak and 15% one-year oak. 65% cabernet sauvignon and 30% merlot, the rest cabernet franc and petit verdot. From biodynamically grown grapes. Try after 2028, but an absolute joy to taste now.
99 points, James Suckling (Mar 2022)
#26 - James Suckling Top 100 of 2022
The 2019 Pontet-Canet is made from 65% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Merlot, 3% Cabernet Franc, and 2% Petit Verdot. Deep garnet-purple colored, it is a little shy to begin, slowly drifting out of the glass with an evocative perfume of violets, black tea, rose petals, and cinnamon stick over a core of cassis, juicy blackberries, and black cherries, plus touches of star anise and cardamom. Medium to full-bodied, concentrated, and delivering layer upon layer of black fruits and savory accents, it has a firm, ripe, grainy texture and just enough freshness, finishing very long and fragrant. So stunningly vibrant that it shimmers, give it a good four years further in the cellar to open out and enjoy its transformation over the next 40 years+. Tasted three times with consistent notes.
99 points, Lisa Perrotti-Brown, Wine Independent (Apr 2022)
Particularly successful during En Primeur, and even better now, just bursting out of the glass. Plump and fruit forward, plenty of character, with spiced cedar and smoked earth, violet and iris notes play around the edges, but the focus is on creamy cassis, bilberry, cocoa bean and aniseed. Last vintage with Jean-Michel Comme as technical director, and you really now see the skilled use of amphoras, which added notes of austerity in the early years (they introduced them in 2012) but now showcase the precision of the fruit. 100% 1st wine, with the ageing taking place in a mix of 45% new oak barrels, 15% one year barrels and 40% amphoras.
98 points, Jane Anson (Jan 2022)
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