Château Pontet-Canet - Pauillac 2020 (1.5L)
| Producer | Château Pontet-Canet |
| Country | France |
| Region | Bordeaux |
| Subregion | Pauillac |
| Varietal | Bordeaux Blend |
| Vintage | 2020 |
| Item# | 39820 |
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Jeb Dunnuck: 97+ Points
The flagship from this estate, the 2020 Château Pontet-Canet is a beauty based on 60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 32% Merlot, and 4% each of Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot, brought up in 50% new oak, with 35% in amphora. Deep purple-hued with a great nose of dark currants, plums, tobacco leaf, and truffly earth, it hits the palate with full-bodied richness, a layered, seamless mouthfeel and a great finish. The higher Merlot content here really shows in its overall sexy, supple, seamless style, and while this already offers pleasure, it's going to be one for the ages as well.
Vinous: 95+ Points
The 2020 Pontet-Canet is a potent, brooding wine that really seems to reflect the richness of the year in its flavor profile and overall feel. Today, the 2020 is quite dark and somber, although aeration gradually brings out floral top notes that convey freshness. The 2020 is an exotic Pontet-Canet that that will require time. The 2020 spent 14-16 months in the cellar, in the combination of 50% new oak, 35% amphora and 15% once-used barrels.
Wine Advocate: 92+ Points
While Justine Tesseron declined my request to taste at the property, I was able to acquire a bottle of the 2020 Pontet-Canet for review. The wine starts strong, wafting from the glass with attractive aromas of cherries, sweet berries and plum preserve mingled with lilac and licorice, but that's followed by a medium to full-bodied, firm and extracted palate that lacks the amplitude and flesh to conceal the rather drying tannins which dominate the earthy finish. It's an open secret among Bordeaux insiders that this estate—which has benefited from such significant and laudable investments and which was on such an upward trajectory through 2011—has been a perplexingly erratic performer since 2012, intermingling successful vintages with relative failures, and the 2020 only confirms that. While the 2020 isn't by any means a flawed wine, and time may well be kind to it, it doesn't transcend this estate's fifth growth status, even if this château's terroir clearly has the potential to.
