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Wine Description
The Story
Vieux Chateau Certan is one of Pomerol's oldest and most exalted estates, having produced wine since at least the mid 1740s. On the Belleyme Map, published in 1785, the property was listed as "Sertan" and was owned by the Demays, a family of established Bordeaux negociants. A century later, ownership passed to a banker, Charles de Bousquet, who sold it to George Thienpont in 1924.
The family diversified in 1979 when Marcel and Gérard Thienpont founded nearby microcuvée estate Château Le Pin. In 1985, management of Vieux Château Certan came to Alexandre Thienpont.
Wine Information
The Bordeaux wine faculty never ceases to remind us: « to make a perfect vintage in red wine, the vine growing season must fulfil five successive conditions. »
In the 2009 vintage, each of these conditions was fulfilled, one after the other, with clockwork precision. A real winter and then a superb spring, neither too hot nor too wet, brought about an even and normally early budding of the vines. The summer was hot and dry, but never excessively so, helping the grapes to remain in excellent health at an expectedly quite small crop size. Then, one week before the harvest was due to start, heavy rain fell, enabling the skins of the berries to complete ripeness and increasing the potential crop size to a satisfactory level.
The 2009 is balanced, concentrated and warm without being powerful. The Merlot is dense, rich, smooth and full and shows breed. It rolls around the tongue. The small amount of Cabernet Franc chosen to go into the first wine is all finesse and delicacy. It is ripe, complex, packed with flavour and very long on the palate.
The Cabernet Sauvignon is lively, delicious and savoury. Even though the proportion in the blend is small, it brings a touch of freshness that is essential to the final blend.
The 2009 Vieux Château Certan, with a yield of slightly over 40 hectolitres per hectare, resembles in its blend composition, the excellent VCC 1998.
Vintage 2009
Right up there with 1947, 1961, and 2005, 2009 is a year of almost exaggeratedly (for Bordeaux) flamboyant, opulent wines with elevated ripeness and low acidity. The tannins are unusually ripe, while the wines are quite voluptuous in style. The Left Bank recorded more sunlight hours than legendary vintages such as 1947 and 1982, and grapes had higher sugar concentrations than 2003 and 2005. The key was significant diurnal temperature swings that allowed grapes to handle the hot daytime temperatures. An exceptional vintage across the board.