Vieux Chateau Certan 1975 (5.0L)

17.5 JR / 94 JS / 93 VM

‘Mild winter with quite heavy rainfall. Warm start to spring with some frost and cold spells. Good flowering. Hot and dry summer. Rain before harvest which began around 26 September. A few hailstorms punctuated dry and sunny weather during the vintage. Small crop due to summer drought. A perfect Pomerol vintage.’
Rich and heady and with more stuffing and bluster than the 1971. Just a little bit hard but it’s impressive. (06/2024) Jancis Robinson

Very meaty on the nose, enhanced by game and dried flowers, but also blurred by a horseradish note. Medium-bodied palate, showing a youthful attack, a fully focused and firm structure with dusty, rustic tannins and long, crisp acidity. A cigar-box note comes through in the aftertaste, adding a welcome detail to an otherwise stern wine. Drink or hold.--James Suckling

Bottles of 1975 Vieux Château Certan have been a little inconsistent over the years, although when it is on form it can represent the high point of the decade. Plump black plum on the nose with a distinctive brine/marine scent, well-defined and gaining intensity in the glass, one hopes that the palate matches up. It does (or at least, it can do.) Well-endowed red fruit, very well balanced though quite muscular, sinewy in style, there is admirable grip if not the most graceful VCC that you will ever meet. Taken from the Pomerol book authored by Neal Martin. -- Neal Martin, Vinous Media