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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 2020 growing season was marked by the striking contrast between an incredibly rainy winter and a durably dry and often hot summer. A homogeneous and rather thin flowering began in mid-May and led to an early harvest that produced a low crop yield.
The old vines, their vigor favourably slowed by this drought, produced wonderfully deep colored, concentrated and balanced wines. Merlot is intensely aromatic, dense, full and with breed. It rolls over the tongue. It's the Merlot that marks this vintage. The Cabernet Franc, with its small, concentrated berries, produced a smooth-textured wine of amazing complexity; It is flavoursome and has good length offlavour.
Vintage 2020
In Bordeaux, the heat resulted in early flowering. Also, this led to an early harvest after a very hot summer. As a starting point, there is great maturity in the grapes, and one can expect a more opulent vintage than in the last few years.
The summer this year has been the warmest since 1959, yet the rain has fallen at the right times during the growing season. The harvest took place two weeks before the norm and will yield grapes with high potential alcohol and the lowest acidity since the 2003 vintage. As they say in Bordeaux: "It has been a good and extreme growing season which hopefully also produces great wines".
