The freshness and dynamic sense to the wine is so surprising. Minerally and salty. It's full yet racy. Black ink and oyster shell. Excellent length. 25% cabernet franc, 5% cabernet sauvignon and the rest, merlot.

The 2022 Vieux Château Certan is a wine of tremendous sophistication and polish. I expected to see a more opulent VCC, but the 2022 is surprisingly delicate and nuanced. The blend is 75% Merlot, 20% Cabernet Franc and 5% Cabernet Sauvignon, which means all the Cabernets at the château were used in Grand Vin. Perhaps that explains the wine’s construction, favoring length, persistence and aromatics more than size. Crème de cassis, lavender, spice and licorice hints linger on the super-expressive finish. There’s really not much more to say except that the 2022 is magical. “Real heat started in June," explained Alexandre Thienpont. “We had 15mm of rain over two days in mid-August that really helped. Even so, yields were 35 hectoliters per hectare, so lower than 2020. Berries weighed less athan a gram and juice yields were low.

One of the wines of the vintage, without a doubt, the 2022 Vieux Château Certan comes from healthy yields of 38 hectoliters per hectare and is 75% Merlot, 20% Cabernet Franc, and 5% Cabernet Sauvignon. Jaw-droppingly good in every sense, its deep purple hue is followed by a massive array of black cherries, violets, red plums, chocolate, and violets. This carries to a full-bodied Pomerol with a voluptuously layered mouthfeel, perfect tannins, and a great, great finish. I never find Vieux Château Certan to have the overt power and structure of Petrus, or the feminine elegance of Conseillante, but it's unrivaled in its texture, seamlessness, and purity. If this doesn't put a smile on your face, I don't know what will. And I'll be a buyer.

The 2022 Vieux Château Certan is deep and harmonious, unwinding in the glass with aromas of inky blackberries and cherries mingled with scents of burning embers, truffle and lilac. Full-bodied, dense and layered, it's rich and enveloping, its concentrated core of sweet fruit framed by powdery tannins and juicy acids. Integrated, complete and precise, this blend of 75% Merlot, 20% Cabernet Franc and 5% Cabernet Sauvignon is a brilliant vintage for Vieux Château Certan.

Sweet and spiced aromas of blackcurrant leaf, liquorice, clove, chocolate, espresso, and perfumed violets. A wine of brooding intensity, yet cool and refined, never heavy or overripe. The texture is like taffeta - broad, filling, yet light and bouncy. Layers unfold with a chewy yet cushioned density, deepening on the mid-palate with spiced liquorice and vertical depth, while the acidity pushes the fruit forward, creating a wide sphere of flavors and textures. Balanced and finessed, concentrated but never overpowering. Multi-dimensional, crystalline, juicy, and clean, it carries an effortless elegance. Less hedonistic than Le Pin but more suave, it knows its star power. Exceptional.

A blend of 75% Merlot, 20% Cabernet Franc and 5% Cabernet Sauvignon (very similar to the 2019), the 2022 Vieux Château Certan is a magical wine of exemplary harmony and balance. Offering up complex aromas of dark berries and cherries mingled with notions of exotic spices, licorice, iris, violets and loamy soil, it's full-bodied, supple and seamless, its sweet structuring tannins entirely concealed by a multidimensional core of pure, vibrant fruit. This sensual, perfumed Pomerol is likely to rank alongside the 2019 and 2016 in the pantheon of recent Vieux Château Certan vintages.

The 2022 Vieux Château Certan was picked between 6 and 21 September at 35hL/ha and matured in two-thirds new oak. Alexandre Thienpont thinks it is a combination of the 2019 and 2020 and said that the Cabernet Sauvignon, from younger vines, lowered the alcohol (14.4%) and lent perfume. The aromatics are spellbinding with brilliant delineation and a surfeit of freshness. Blackberry, briary, crushed stone and light iris flower scents, vivacious and so energetic. The palate is medium-bodied with fine, very supple tannins, and lashings of cracked black pepper, pencil box and tobacco infusing the black fruit. As Thienpont said, persistent on the finish and gently lacquering the vines. The Cabernet is very expressive this year and so while it is a real Left Bank/Right Bank hybrid, it is, at the same time, quintessentially Pomerol. Chapeau Alexandre et Guillaume Thienpont.

Firm tannic frame, with ink, graphite, violet flowers and red roses, even hints of black truffles at this young age, a sign of the exuberance of the vintage and one that will no doubt increase with age. A little less Cabernet Franc in the blend than usual because they have one plot uprooted right now. The aromatics are explosing, but things are more serious on the palate, with grip and austerity, and it will need a good eight to ten years in bottle to soften. Beautiful nutmeg and clove spice, with a mouthwatering finish. 35hl/h yield. 65% new oak. Oldest vines date back to 1958. 75% new oak

75% Merlot, 20% Cabernet Franc, 5% Cabernet Sauvignon. Cask sample. Powerful but elegant at the same time. Floral notes with a hint of violet. Enticing, juicy extract and tannins that are present but plush and smooth. Long and well balanced with grip on the finish. (JL)

The 2022 Vieux Château Certan is s total stunner. Readers will find a magical wine, a Pomerol that satisfies both the intellectual and hedonistic senses. Vertical and explosive, with stunning presence, the 2022 VCC simply has it all. Time in the glass reveals myriad shades of nuance. Blue/purplish fruit, lavender, spice, menthol, licorice and plum literally soar out of the glass. The tannins are present but nearly buried by the wine's deep, layered fruit. But more than anything else, it is the balance, the total sense of harmony, that is most impressive. I simply can’t ask anything more of the 2022, hence its lofty and well-deserved rating. Bravo! (January 2025)