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.

Such gorgeous aromatics of freshly picked violets, cherries and bramble fruits - pretty and quite delicate. The texture is smooth and succulent, mouth coating but full of soft tannins which have the most delicious black cherry, blackcurrant flesh and liquorice tinge to them - so satisfying. Extremely well balanced and well integrated, this has restrained power, it's not rich or particularly round but straight, direct and layered rather than wide. Really long finish with great freshness and touches of cool blueberries. This is just such a great wine, everything you want and you know there's power there promising a long life. Great winemaking on show. 35% aged in concrete, 50% new oak, 15% in barrels of one year, for 16-18 months. This year there's a new label, the drawing of the house has remained but the font is more elegant and modern. A blend of 57% Cabernet Sauvignon, 35% Merlot, 3% Cabernet Franc and 5% Petit Verdot. Drinking Window: 2027 - 2047
Tasted by: Georgina Hindle (at Bordeaux, 05 Jan 2022)
Part of Château Pontet-Canet: Tasting 10 years of biodynamics

It is the purity of the fruit, along with the soft, silky, polished layers of freshness that matter here. The wine kicks off with an array of flowers, plums, currants and blackberries along with spice, savory herbs, tobacco leaf and a touch of cherry. The wine exudes its red fruit quality with ease, leaving you with an elegant, refined, soft, polished, mid-palate and a long, vibrant, fresh finish that provides you with a gorgeous display of purity in the fruits. Please allow the wine some time for aging before pulling a cork. Drink from 2030-2060. Tasted March 2022

The 2019 Pontet-Canet was so effusive and generous en primeur. Today, though, it is quite reticent. That won't be an issue for those who can be patient, but patience indeed will be the key here. Dark red fleshed fruit, tobacco, cedar, spice, kirsch, mint and blood orange gradually open with a bit of coaxing. Imposing tannins wrap it all together. The 2019 is a drop-dead gorgeous beauty, but it needs time.

The 2019 Pontet Canet was picked from September 23 until October 10, finishing with the Petit Verdot, and bottled in mid-June/July. My sample, tasted at the property, was decanted. Matured in 50% new oak and 35% concrete amphora, this is endowed with an intense, enveloping bouquet of opulent blackberry and boysenberry fruit laced with crushed violet and light fig aromas, becoming more floral with aeration and revealing crushed violet petals. The palate is medium-bodied with layered black fruit, cracked black pepper, hints of pencil lead and a splash of soy. This is one of the most powerful Pauillac wines that I encountered this vintage, very juicy and with plenty of rondeur on the very spicy finish. This should give three decades of drinking pleasure.

Very lush out of the gate, with waves of gently mulled plum, blackberry and black currant fruit that roll through slowly, lined with alder, sweet tobacco, worn cedar and singed savory notes. Delivers a late tug of iron that's well-buried on a finish marked by lingering perfume, resulting in an end impression of a rich wine that's very light on its feet. Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. Best from 2023 through 2036. JM March 2022

The 2019 Pontet-Canet offers up an expressive bouquet of plummy fruit, kirsch, dried herbs and peonies. On the palate, it's full-bodied, ample and seamless, with melting tannins, succulent acids, and a long, liqueured finish. Tasted twice, it's a wine I find somewhat perplexing: in a blind tasting, I might be more inclined to place it in Gigondas than Pauillac. I'm far from dogmatic when it comes to what the French call "typicité," and stylistic diversity surely enriches every appellation; but by the same token, I'm not convinced that this is the most compelling aesthetic that a Cabernet-based blend from this part of Bordeaux can realize. Checking in at 13.7% alcohol, some 35% of the production was matured in amphorae, which no doubt contributes to the wine's idiosyncratic identity. WK