Château Pontet-Canet - Pauillac 2009

Pontet-Canet has always been a legendary Medoc. It is deep ruby-red, crimson, and sometimes almost black colour and has a characteristic bouquet of black fruit (especially blackcurrant), liquorice, and prune as well as fig, cedar, and sometimes cocoa overtones. Pontet-Canet combines power and elegance, as well as concentration and fullness on the palate. Rather sinewy in style, Pontet-Canet is clearly a classical wine with a tannic structure that provides excellent ageing potential. The chateau team is conscious of the fact that they are following in the footsteps of more than three centuries of tradition, with each period contributing its technical innovations in the interest of quality and in order faithfully to reflect the terroir.

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.

Delivers aromas of blueberry skin, fresh flowers, licorice and raspberry sauce, with something exotic underneath it all. Full-bodied, with wonderful clarity and freshness. It's like looking at a full moon on a crystal-clear night in the country. This keeps coming at you, with tannins and ripe fruit. What balance, yet power to the wine. I love how the wine changes and challenges you with every sip. ?James Suckling,

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, lbut also power. ?Roger Voss,