Pontet Canet 2009 (6.0L)

100 WI / 100 JD / 100 WA / 99 WCI / 98-100 WE / 98+ JS / 98 FS / 97 JA / 19 JR

A wine I’ve been lucky enough to have numerous times since release, the 2009 Pontet Canet is one of those magical efforts that wine lovers encounter far too infrequently. From one of the greatest vintages for the region ever, this deep, saturated purple-colored effort offers an incredible bouquet of crème de cassis, blackcurrants, lead pencil shavings, damp earth, and graphite. This gives way to a full-bodied, powerful Pauillac that carries a massive amount of sweet fruit yet stays light and beautifully balanced on the palate. With ripe, sweet tannin, an expansive texture, and awesome mid-palate depth, as well as incredible purity, freshness, and delineation, it’s as good as wine gets and can be enjoyed anytime over the coming 4-5 decades. Hats off to proprietor Alfred Tesseron and the team at Pontet Canet! - Jeb Dunnuck

An amazing wine in every sense, this classic, full-bodied Pauillac is the quintessential Pontet Canet from proprietor Alfred Tesseron, who continues to reduce yields and farms his vineyards biodynamically – a rarity in Bordeaux. Black as a moonless night, the 2009 Pontet Canet offers up notes of incense, graphite, smoke, licorice, creme de cassis and blackberries. A wine of irrefutable purity, laser-like precision, colossal weight and richness, and sensational freshness, this is a tour de force in winemaking that is capable of lasting 50 or more years. The tannins are elevated, but they are sweet and beautifully integrated as are the acidity, wood and alcohol (which must be in excess of 14%). This vineyard, which is situated on the high plateau of Pauillac adjacent to Mouton Rothschild, appears to have done everything perfectly in 2009. This cuvee should shut down in the cellar and re-open in a decade or more. Anticipated maturity: 2025-2075. - Robert M. Parker, Jr., The Wine Advocate

What makes this all work, is the perfectly ripe fruit that shows off its purity with ease. Supple textured, multi-layered and with a finish that seems to never leave, the wine is rich, luscious, opulent and mouth-coating. Intense, yet not heavy, everything is in balance. The mouth-coating finish hangs with you for close to 60 seconds. Not quite primary, but still obviously young, if you like wines with sweet, exuberant fruit, why not pop a cork and check it out? Else wait another decade for its real character to kick in.-Jeff Leve, Wine Cellar Insider

98-100 Barrel sample. A superb wine, with the purest fruit, great freshness and ripeness. It is certainly structured with dry tannins, but the blackcurrant freshness is all there. The wine has a great limpid, flowing feel, but also power. — Roger Voss, Wine Enthusiast

This is very sexy on the nose with black truffles, blackberries, blackcurrants, and dark chocolate. Plums too. Full bodied, with an amazing depth of fruit and super silky and intense tannins. This wine has a fabulous clarity and class. Superb. Try after 2022. - James Suckling

Dark ruby, purple reflections, delicate ochre rim. Nuances of tobacco, blackberry, fine hint of cedar, subtle animalistic touch, black cherry, a very multi-faceted bouquet, some orange zest. Complex, juicy, sweet fruit notes of liquorice, blackberry, ripe tannins, subtle hints of blueberry, salty finish, fine herbal savouriness, great length, enormous ageing potential, already gluggable, has reached an initial maturity for enjoyment. (2021 - 2060).-Peter Moser, Falstaff

At 11 years old this remains young, textured, layered, powerful, even a touch of gunsmoke reduction on the first nose. As it opens, this is fruit-forward, packed with sweet black cherry, juicy and fleshy laced with cinammon, aniseed and graphite, ready to drink but will go another few decades. Brilliant stuff, full of Pauillac character but served up with a smile. The estate was in organic conversion at this point, not yet certified, but had been working organically allmost entirely since 2004 (with the 2007 hiccup that meant resetting the conversion process). Served from a jeroboam, so inevitably a little younger than you would find this vintage from a bottle.-Jane Anson, Inside Bordeaux