Vieux Château Certan

Vieux Château Certan, Pomerol, 2023

Name: Vieux Château Certan, Pomerol
Brand: Vieux Château Certan
Price: 1110 GBP

96/100

Inside Bordeaux

97-99/100

The Wine Independent

94-96/100

Vinous

Available Vintages

delivery

in bond

En primeur

2023
6x75cl
EP
£1,110.00

Justerini & Brooks Tasting note

As always, this is one of our favourite Pomerols and one of the most handsome wines produced in Bordeaux. Alexandre and Guillaume Thienpont have excelled again, capturing the essence of the vintage with their gorgeous VCC 2023. Glorious aromas of violet, bergamot and pure dark berries emerge from the glass. This segues to a core of perfectly ripe, taut cassis; so fine grained and precise with hints of cracked herbs, creamy, dark fruits and salts. Ever so gentle, with lots of detail, then a finishing flourish, a peacock's tail of spices, stones, perfumed berries - coiled, multifaceted, sensational. A VCC of immense charm. 82% Merlot and 18% Cabernet Franc.

delivery information

GUARANTEED PROVENANCE

Provenance in fine wine

When it comes to purchasing wine, provenance is of upmost importance. A wine’s history – where it’s sourced from and how it’s been stored – can have an enormous influence on the eventual enjoyment it provides. At Justerini & Brooks, we can trace nearly every case back to the domaine, estate or Château it originally came from; we ship from over 200 wine producers throughout the world.

Wines not bought directly from the vineyard are either sourced from trusted suppliers, with whom we share the same philosophy and rigour in buying, or from our own network of Cellarers customers. These customers’ wines are stored in optimal conditions in Octavian Corsham and, in the vast majority of cases, have been stored by us since the wine was first shipped. We do not purchase wine from auctions.

We feel it is equally important to for our customers that the case they buy and leave in storage with us is exactly the same case they subsequently have delivered. This may sound obvious and straightforward, yet we are one of very few merchants to have taken measures to ensure this.

We have created a system where every case is independent, thereby ensuring a trail of ownership and peace of mind for every customer.

The Journey

Justerinis ensures that every case of wine stored with Cellarers (Wines) Ltd has a unique identifier and customer’s name, almost unheard of in the industry as it is expensive to administer. These details are printed and placed on every case which is logged and recorded under your account name and kept in the world’s most renowned storage facility, Octavian Corsham.

This information is sent from our systems to the warehouse every day to ensure the trail of ownership is verified and upheld.

While customer reserves are stored in Corsham, our physical stocks are kept in Hoddesdon, further providing a geographical separation between customers’ wines with Cellarers and Justerinis’ own stock.

Further Reassurance

Cellarers (Wines) Ltd is a legally separate limited company from Justerini & Brooks which currently holds approximately £450 million worth of customer reserves. It is fully insured to catastrophic loss. Many merchants will state that wine in their care is fully insured, but in reality this is on an individual case basis with insufficient cover for total loss as this is prohibitively expensive. The cover provided by Octavian and Justerini & Brooks is unmatched.

Cellarers (Wines) Ltd is audited by PwC every year.

Critic Reviews

97-99/100

Lisa Perrotti-Brown,

The Wine Independent

A blend of 82% Merlot and 18% Cabernet Franc, Vieux Chateau Certan 2023 has a pH of 3.74 and it is deep garnet-purple in color. Notes of fresh blackberries, juicy plums, and black cherries slowly emerge from the glass, opening out to fragrant notes of violets, star anise, and black truffles, followed by wafts of wood smoke and cardamom. The medium-bodied palate is taut and muscular with firm, rounded tannins and seamless acidity, finishing with many, many layers of earth, spice, and floral notes. This is pure latent power.

drinking window 2030 - 2060

date of review 05/2024

96/100

Jane Anson,

Inside Bordeaux

Fresh floral heights to the aromatics, then dark berry fruits and a core of muscles of the palate, classically-weighted with grip and texture, white pepper spice and salted cracker salinity on the finish. Stretches out through the palate, feels gloriously old school, full of hidden depths and pleasures. 43hl/h yield, harvest September 18 through to 29. Youngest vines here are 1988, which helps give the complexity that is so celebrated at VCC.

drinking window 2030 - 2048

date of review 05/2024

94-96/100

Neal Martin,

Vinous

The 2023 Vieux Château Certan was picked from September 18 to 29. This year, there is no Cabernet Sauvignon in the blend as the fruit did not reach full ripeness, according to winemaker Guillaume Thienpont. The fruit was cropped at 43hL/ha as they suffered no mildew, there were one-third fewer pump-overs, and this vintage matured in two-thirds new oak. It has a well-defined bouquet, a little sultry at first: black cherry, iodine, violet flower and a touch of crushed stone. This unfurls beautifully in the glass. The palate is medium-bodied with grainy tannins. Broader in the mouth compared to the Le Pin that I tasted right before, this is slightly more savory in style thanks to the 18% Cabernet Franc, landing gently on the finish. This is an elegant, slightly earthier VCC that will age beautifully in the bottle.

drinking window 2029 - 2055

date of review 04/2024

product details

Specifications

Country:

Region:

Appellation:

Producer:

style:

Grape Variety:

Merlot Cabernet Franc

abv:

13.2%

allergen information

This product may contain sulphites. Full allergen information is available upon request, please call our Customer Relations Team on +44 (0)20 7484 6430.