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  • Country ranking ?

    1 210
  • Producer ranking ?

    20
  • Decanting time

    1h
  • When to drink

    Now
  • Food Pairing

    Beef

The Tb points given to this wine are the world’s most valid and most up-to-date evaluation of the quality of the wine. Tastingbook points are formed by the Tastingbook algorithm which takes into account the wine ratings of the world's best-known professional wine critics, wine ratings by thousands of tastingbook’s professionals and users, the generally recognised vintage quality and reputation of the vineyard and winery. Wine needs at least five professional ratings to get the Tb score. Tastingbook.com is the world's largest wine information service which is an unbiased, non-commercial and free for everyone.

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The Story

Pontet-Canet has always been a legendary Médoc. 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 château 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. Château Pontet-Canet and the estate's second wine, Hauts de Pontet-Canet, are sold exclusively via the Bordeaux wine trade.

 

Of the 120 hectares (300 acres) estate of Pontet-Canet located in the northern end of the Pauillac commune, across the road from first growth Château Mouton Rothschild, 80 ha (200 acres) are under vine.[2] The soil composition is mainly gravel over a subsoil of clay and limestone. The grape variety distribution is 60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 33% Merlot, 5% Petit Verdot and 2% Cabernet Franc.[2] Vines average 35 years of age.

Pontet-Canet has one of the largest productions of any classified growth in the Medoc with a production of nearly 20,000 cases of its grand-vin, and another 20,000 cases of its second wine, Les Hauts de Pontet. Harvesting is done by hand, and after sorting the grapes are moved into the estate's gravity-feed cellars for crushing. Fermentation takes place in a mixture of concrete and stainless steel vats. Wines are aged for 16-20 months in up to 60% new oak barrels before fining with egg whites and bottling.

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Wine Information

Of the 120 hectares (300 acres) estate of Pontet-Canet located in the northern end of the Pauillac commune, across the road from first growth Château Mouton Rothschild, 80 ha (200 acres) are under vine.[2] The soil composition is mainly gravel over a subsoil of clay and limestone. The grape variety distribution is 60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 33% Merlot, 5% Petit Verdot and 2% Cabernet Franc.[2] Vines average 35 years of age.

Pontet-Canet has one of the largest productions of any classified growth in the Medoc with a production of nearly 20,000 cases of its grand-vin, and another 20,000 cases of its second wine, Les Hauts de Pontet. Harvesting is done by hand, and after sorting the grapes are moved into the estate's gravity-feed cellars for crushing. Fermentation takes place in a mixture of concrete and stainless steel vats. Wines are aged for 16-20 months in up to 60% new oak barrels before fining with egg whites and bottling.

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Vintage 1945

The best vintage in the world – 1947 or 1945? Tastingbook has tasted all the best wines from these two great vintages.

If wine producers from different regions were asked to name the best vintages in their wine history, most would name 1947 or 1945 as one of the greats. If we then compared them, there would probably only be one vintage that most, if not all, producers had named on the list – 1947.

We wanted to test this theory and we tasted them against each other and the winner was 1947 – by a long shot.

The 1947 vintage was a magical vintage. It goes down in history as one of the only vintages that all the well-established quality wine regions in the world were blessed with superb weather conditions. Heatwaves have been experienced all over the world and, for example, all of Europe was blazing under the blazing sun and experiencing a heatwave during the summer. This resulted in very concentrated and very ripe grapes. Growers found it difficult to handle very ripe grapes with high sugar levels because there was a constant risk of bacterial contamination in less hygienic wineries that did not have artificial cooling systems. Since there was no technology to use, many relied on huge blocks of ice to cool the room temperature and even put ice in their fermentation tanks.

This vintage has proven to produce very long-lasting wines from around the world. The wines are marked by a sweet, ripe fruit character and warming alcohol. Due to unhygienic winemaking facilities, many wines exhibit volatile characters. Some might find this a flaw, but for many mature wine lovers, this feature is even a favorite character. However, when purchasing wines from this vintage one should be aware that there is a high level of bottle variation and the risk of having highly volatile wines is remarkably high.

1945 was an exceptional year throughout France, from Côte-Rôtie to Bordeaux. Due to the hot and dry conditions, the grapes were very concentrated and produced an extraordinary, but unfortunately low, yield. The 1945 harvest was an early harvest, beginning on the same date as 1982, September 13. The wines started life with massive levels of tannin and took several decades to develop. Due to the high levels of tannins, many wines still show well today.

 

 

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Tasting note

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Written Notes

Opened in a rush after I discovered it had started to leak.... Somewhat cloudy dark ruby with orange rim. Actually fruity on the nose, plums, prunes, raisins and a faint cassis, leather and floral, sweet anise. Sweet fruits, almost unripe strawberries on the palate, quite high acidity, tannins far gone, refreshing, feels like very old Barolo on the acidity and playfullness, really surprising that it's keeping up so strongly, evolving quickly in the glass, giving a memory glimpse of the 45 Clos Lambrays, getting ever more floral, roses, violets, adding body, mouthwatering, getting raspberries as well, intermixed with coffee, you have to understand and like old bottles to enjoy this, it's quite special, intriguing even. All the time it ads on, all aromas are not quite as lovely, after about fifteen minutes sweaty socks, rubber touch, then eucalyptus, and a first for me in a wine, aloe vera. Body gets fuller and fuller, acidity is just amazingly playful, what a shame I paniced, this is not the wine to be drunk by one self, remarkable wine indeed. After further ten minutes, furnish polish, wet forest floor and rotting wood, always with plums behind, and almost massive floral notes, lillies, almost sickeningly sweet lillies. Now also cassis on the palate, a huge amount of things going on in this one, aftertaste is never that long, but acidity goes on like crazy carrying a string of unripe wild strawberries, those sour ones you could not help but pick when you were a child. Black tea coming in, I have never felt such an array of specters and layers in any wine I think, at least not as easy to describe. Mr Paul Pontallier of Château Margaux talks about how nothing jumps out, here everything jumps out, right in your face. It has the acidity of the best 45 Ausone bottle, but far more nuanced, after thirty minutes the socks are starting to let go, and it seems to turn into a flower garden, oozes of violets, caprifolium, lavender, almost too much, almost too sweet. Ever more perfumed. After fourty minutes, figs and prunes are setting in, and after 45!, it seems to settle down, the race is over, its just holding out. It held it there for about ten minutes, then slowly fading, still higly enjoyable for about an hour and a half, but the nuances fell apart, ever so slowly, but the last glass died off fairly quickly.
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Origin

Pauillac, Bordeaux
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