A blend of 56% Cabernet Sauvignon, 39% Merlot, 4% Cabernet Franc and 1% Petit Verdot that weighs in at 13.3% alcohol, the 2025 Pontet-Canet is one of the finest wines this estate has produced. Wafting from the glass with aromas of sweet cassis, wild berries and plums mingled with notions of violet and burning embers, it's full-bodied, ample and velvety, with a degree of structural polish and sensuality that is rare in the Médoc, ripe acids and a long, penetrating finish. Over the last handful of years, technical director Mathieu Bessonnet and his team have revitalized Pontet-Canet's vineyards with well-timed soil work and precise phytosanitary treatments; and since 2023, the careful use of "pieds de cuve" in the winery, along with early blending, more refined barrel choices and cooler temperatures in the chai—plus more precise bottling practices—have conspired to take this estate to new heights of quality and consistency. In 2025, the team formed lower-than-usual "ponts" (whereby the canopies of adjacent vines are braided together in an arch) to retain denser foliage to protect the fruiting zone from sunshine, and they waited to pick late in pursuit of full maturity in Cabernet Sauvignon, finishing on September 23. The result is one of the wines of the vintage. William Kelley.

A precise and beautiful wine with total integration of the fruit and polished tannins that give a caressing and seductive mouthfeel. It’s medium-bodied with lovely fruit, a gentle nature and an overall softness and gorgeousness. Yet structured.

Deep purple plum colour in the glass with earthy, blackcurrant fruit aromas. Crystalline and focussed, this is seamless and quite straight - tannins are fine but give a solid structure and edge to the wine with brilliant purity to the fruit. Excellent freshness but it’s more than just cool and pure, there’s perfect tension and weight, clarity and finesse with detail - sinewy, juicy, fresh, fragrant, cool and mouthwatering. Delicate and graceful with the power from ample tannins building afterwards full of liquorice, sticky cola, black chocolate, a dusting of espresso and tobacco. A very transparent expression of the vintage - not overly demonstrative but structured and fresh with a great promise of long ageing. 3.7pH. Harvest 2-15 September with indigenous yeasts and no sulphur usage for fermentations and a long maceration to soften the tannis. 1% of Petit Verdot completes the blend. Ageing 50% new oak, 35% amphoras and 15% one wine barrels. 

The 2025 Pontet-Canet is a wine of exquisite class. Silky, aromatic and vibrant, the 2025 is all finesse. Crushed red/purplish fruit, lavender, rose petal and a gentle hint of spice are all wonderfully knit together. Pontet-Canet is one of the more refined, sublimely beautiful wines of the year. This could turn out even better than my note suggests. Tasted two times.

Dark purple in color, the wine exudes currants, peppery spices, blackberries, and licorice on the nose. The palate is lush and creamy. Intensely concentrated with lift and balanced by richness, the wine culminates in a long, mouth-coating finish packed with black currants, chocolate, spice, mint, and flowers. The wine blends 56% Cabernet Sauvignon, 39% Merlot, 4% Cabernet Franc, and 1% Petit Verdot. 13.3% ABV. Harvesting took place September 2 - September 23. Much of the vintage's success is due to the late-June rains, followed by late-August rains, which helped achieve ripeness and lower alcohol levels while adding lift and energy. The wine is aging in a combination of 50% new, French oak barrels, 35% Amphora, and neutral oak. Drink from 2032-2065.

Deep purple-hued, the 2025 Château Pontet-Canet showed beautifully both times I tasted it, with incredibly classic Pontet-Canet notes of cassis, violets, iris, and gravelly earth and graphite. Based on 56% Cabernet Sauvignon, 39% Merlot, 4% Cabernet Franc, and 1% Petit Verdot, it's being raised in 50% new barriques, 35% concrete amphora, and 15% once-used barrels. It's rich and concentrated on the palate, with medium to full-bodied richness, ripe, building tannins, nicely integrated acidity, and a layered, elegant mouthfeel. Checking in at 13.3% alcohol with a pH of 3.7, it brings a balanced, structured, beautifully classic style with terrific elegance and a beautiful floral character.

Dark purple in color, the wine exudes currants, peppery spices, blackberries, and licorice on the nose. The palate is lush and creamy. Intensely concentrated with lift and balanced by richness, the wine culminates in a long, mouth-coating finish packed with black currants, chocolate, spice, mint, and flowers. The wine blends 56% Cabernet Sauvignon, 39% Merlot, 4% Cabernet Franc, and 1% Petit Verdot. 13.3% ABV. Harvesting took place September 2 - September 23. Much of the vintage's success is due to the late-June rains, followed by late-August rains, which helped achieve ripeness and lower ABV levels while adding lift and energy. The wine is aging in a combination of 50% new, French oak barrels, 35% Amphora, and neutral oak. Drink from 2032-2065.

Inky but vivid bright plum colour, tannins at the front of the mouth, a ton of energy, if reserved at this early stage. Expect graphite and crayon, lovely lift and floral Cabernet Sauvignon character; low yields like much of Pauillac and small berries ensuring the tannins are plentiful. Walks the line of fresh and juicy flavours alongside a brooding concentrated architecture, huge ageing potential with cold ash and gunsmoke nuance. Although there was some rain at end of June and July, this was still a dry vintage, and vineyard work including braiding the vines for shade and applying chamomile as sunscreen, so they coped better than in 2022 overall. Harvest September 2 to 23, indigenous yeasts that are specific to the vintage, 40% new oak, 35% clay amphoras, 15% one year old barrels. Extended maceration, low SO2 with zero added until after fermentation.

Tasted at the property with the talented technical director, Mathieu Bessonnet. A little closed at first, even when served from the decanter. But that allows you to see what one might otherwise miss as the wine opens. This has a delicate florality that interweaves itself with the fruit and, as this inhales, we find that iconic cassis component coming through with aeration. It's very beautiful when it does so, but one needs a little patience. Pontet Canet 2025 is plump and plush in its blend of red and darker berry fruits, with a little thyme. It's also saline in its minerality, distinctly so. On the palate, it's darker-hued, with the fruit profile seemingly evolving or resolving itself towards the darker stone fruits - plums, damsons above all - and a little bramble. We pick up again that distinct wild florality and more and more cassis floods the palate with gentle aeration in the mouth. There's plenty of Pauillac graphite too. The tannins are quite chewy on the finish at this stage and this is distinctly peppery - rose and black peppercorns freshly pounded. It's crystalline but not quite as aerial and luminous as some recent vintages. Indeed, for Pontet Canet I find this reassuringly substantial, but also pleasingly sapid and fresh on the lifted finish.

The 2025 Pontet-Canet was picked between September 2 and 23 and matured in 50% new oak barrels, 35% amphorae and 15% used barrel. The alcohol this year is 13.3%. This has a more fruit-driven bouquet than its peers, with upfront blackberry and blueberry fruit, a little floral in style, with hints of pressed violet that emerge with aeration. Fine delineation. This is finely balanced, quite flinty on the back palate, edgy with pleasing focus. Just a touch of black pepper towards the composed finish. Just the right amount of grip here. Not quite as long as you would find in warmer vintages, but that is moot because of the freshness and brightness in this Pontet Canet.