Pontet Canet 2018

The 2018 Pontet-Canet is made from 70% Cabernet Sauvignon, 22% Merlot, 5% Cabernet Franc, and 3% Petit Verdot. Deep garnet-purple colored, it delivers a powerful nose of prunes, fruitcake, creme de cassis, and rose oil with touches of charcuterie, sandalwood, and fallen leaves. Full-bodied and rich, there is an explosion of exotic spice and black fruit preserves in the mouth, framed by very firm, grainy tannins and fantastic freshness, finishing very long and spicy. This is a behemoth!

A complex nose of blueberries, elderberries, dried fruit, spice and dark chocolate. It’s full-bodied with a harmonious, balanced texture. The tannins are still firm and powerful, but there’s balance and finesse to the whole thing. Tight and reserved, yet long and energetic. The tannins open slowly. Dusty texture. From biodynamically grown grapes. Try after 2024.

An unevolved, almost primordial 2018, the 2018 Château Pontet Canet sports a dense purple hue as well as loads of blue and black fruits, damp earth, tobacco, candied violets, and graphite-laced aromas and flavors. With full-bodied richness, serious mid-palate depth, and building tannins, it's mostly potential at this point, but it's a beautiful wine in the making. A decade of bottle age is going to be required, though, so it's not for those seeking instant gratification.

The concentration that comes from having yields of 12hl/ha is extremely clear - it makes it feel very Pauillac, again resembling as at Latour, a 2010 style in terms of its backbone and sense of hunkering down.

The fruit quality is dark and knitted, with a creamy texture if you give it a minute to settle, an obvious tannic structure and a menthol finish that lets in some juice, bramble and hedgerow pleasures. It’s clearly impressive, although I get just the slightest touch of over-concentration with hints of prune on the finish.

The small yields meant the entire process, from destemming to sorting, was done by hand (last year around 30% of the crop was treated in this way), then fermented in small 40L cement vats that had seen their first service for just part of the crop in 2017. There was huge amounts of hard work and stress to ensure that no dried grapes made it through, with no pumping over and only soft manual punch down to control extraction.

This is 100% 1st wine, same as it has been here for the past three years. 55% will be aged in new oak barrel, 45% in amphoras.

Drinking Window 2026 - 2040

Tasted blind. Savoury, almost oily, note on the nose. Then very broad, sweet and opulent on the palate with a note of dill. Not quite harmonious – yet? – but with a dramatic set of ingredients ready to gel. Leathery finish. 14.5%
Drink 2030 – 2050

Barrel sample. Very, very dark. Intensely fruity aroma –even a touch of wild strawberries, blueberry, fragrant and sweetly and wildly fruited. That aroma is on the palate too, a little darker, but all tied up in the tannins, which are smooth but dense. Firm, dry but not chewy. The freshness accentuates the tannins at the moment, hardening them a little. Utterly embryonic but everything in place even if not yet showing. Concentrated and sweet-fruited. Needs a lot of time. Juicy under all that structure and long. More Pontet-Canet than Pauillac, or than my stereotype of Pauillac. (JH)
Drink 2028-2045

Deep ruby in the glass. The nose is exotic and complex, with strawberries, raspberries and dried cranberries all on show as well as a hint of liquorice and darker fruit. The palate is plush and oily, with a heady richness and sweet brambly fruit. The tannins are refined but still chalky, giving a plush, rich texture. The fruit gains in ripeness through the mid palate to leave a hedonistic, warming finish with the spicy oak subtle and well-integrated in the background. Impressive in both power and ripeness.

(70 Cabernet Sauvignon, 22 Merlot, 5 Cabernet Franc, 3 Petit Verdot) | 55% new oak, 45% goes in concrete tanks (the equivalent size of four casks) The perfume on this wine is like nothing I have ever encountered in Bordeaux. It is the quintessence of juiciness and concentration, but the palate quickly nips this explosion in the bud and then the flavour is seriously controlled and elegant. The main thrust of fruit is purple and decadent with more than a glimpse of heather and liquorice. They were badly affected by mildew at Pontet-Canet and because of their biodynamic rules they couldn’t not simply run out and spray what they wanted in order to prevent catastrophic damage. In addition, they had to hand sort every berry and destem everything by hand. Winemaker Jean-Michel Comme said that they had, ‘11 people for one table’! In the end they made only one third of a normal production here and yet it shows that the biodynamic path still manages to make headline-grabbing wines. With so much exuberance and theatricality, this is a mesmerising wine with a shockingly vibrant flavour. Only a light pigeage (punching-down) was used with no remontage (pumping over) at all. Jean-Michel stated that the levels of quality and concentration achieved in this wine has ‘never been seen here before’. In his opinion it is higher than 2016 and even 2010. While I appreciate that this is an extraordinary wine, I am not as excited about it as I am the aforementioned vintages, so I have given it a cautious score because I have no idea how far or for how long this elixir will develop.