Château Pontet Canet, 5ème Cru Classé, Pauillac, 2020

Name: Château Pontet Canet, 5ème Cru Classé, Pauillac
Brand: Château Pontet Canet
Price: 412.75 GBP

Available Vintages

all 2011 2012 2015 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024

critic reviews

Neal Martin,Vinous

The 2020 Pontet-Canet has a concentrated bouquet that leans more toward red than black fruit—a little savory in style. A second bottle is more exotic than the first. The palate is medium-bodied with crisp tannins. It's quite peppery for a Pauillac, with lovely ripe blackberry and mulberry notes emerging toward the persistent finish. In a strange showing, the second bottle is much drier and austere. I can't make heads or tails between the two bottles and consequently, I will not attribute a score. Tasted blind at the annual Southwold tasting.

date of review 11/2024

92+/100William Kelley,Robert Parker Wine Advocate

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 estatewhich has benefited from such significant and laudable investments and which was on such an upward trajectory through 2011has 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 chateau's terroir clearly has the potential to.

DRINKING WINDOW 2023 - 2040

date of review 04/2023

97/100Lisa Perrotti-Brown,The Wine Independent

Composed of 60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 32% Merlot, 4% Cabernet Franc, and 4% Petit Verdot, the 2020 Pontet-Canet is deep garnet-purple colored. It needs a lot of swirling and aeration to coax out notes of crushed blackcurrants, blueberry compote, and candied violets, leading to suggestions of allspice, fertile loam, kirsch, and dark chocolate with a touch of Indian spices. The medium-bodied palate delivers a firm backbone of grainy tannins with loads of bright, perfumed red and black fruits and seamless acidity, finishing long and fragrant. This is stunning.

DRINKING WINDOW 2028 - 2060

date of review 03/2023

97/100Jane Anson,Inside Bordeaux

A powerful character to this wine, touch of oyster shell, soy, salinity, but also creamy with energy, lift and precision, and a violet character that you find increasingly in Pontet Canet. Plenty of Pauillac signature in its tannic grip and heft, with cocoa bean and slate. Deft and exceptionally successful. Harvest September 14 to September 30. No second wine, as has been true for the past half-decade at Pontet Canet. First full vintage for Mathieu Bessonnet who replaced the previous long-term director Jean-Michel Comme in 2020. 45% new oak barrels, 15% one year, 40% in amphoras.

DRINKING WINDOW 2030 - 2050

date of review 02/2023