This great terroir sandwiched between Vieux Château Certan, Petrus and La Fleur Petrus, on the high plateau of Pomerol, has been owned for many years by the Barrau-Badar family. Beautiful coffee, cedar wood, Christmas fruitcake, black cherry and blackcurrant fruit jump from the glass of this full-bodied, rich, multi-layered, and very impressive Certan de May. I don’t remember it showing this well in barrel and post-bottling, but it is strutting its stuff at age 10, and has a good 20 years of upside left to it. This is a beauty. I especially admire the layered, textural style of the wine. Drink it over the next 20 years.

Tasted at the chateau. The 2005 Certan-de-May has a deep garnet core. It has a deep, rich, compelling nose with cassis, black plum, black cherries, that essence of minerality that inflects the 2004, gaining in intensity all the time. The palate is full-bodied with firm, slightly chewy tannins with notes of black fruit infused with tobacco, tar and smoke. The texture is grippy and there is great depth. At the moment, it does not quite have the poise and the elegance of the 2004, but like say the 1989 or 1990, this will is a Certan-de-May for the long-term. Tasted September 2009.

Deep red. Initially sauvage aromas of plum, leather, game and earth, with higher-pitched blueberry and blackberry emerging with aeration. Sweet, concentrated and densely packed, with a youthfully medicinal character to the dark fruit flavors. Finishes with firm, dusty tannins. Impressively constituted but seems less pure than it was from barrel the spring after the harvest. This will need a good seven or eight years of cellaring. (A second bottle, which I liked far less, was distinctly wilder on the nose and more leathery in the mouth, finishing with drying tannins.)