Vieux Château Certan, Pomerol, 2025
The Thienpont marketing department's catchphrase for 2025 is simply, "a great vintage". Perhaps they worked for Ronseal in a previous life… It is indeed a wonderful vintage for VCC. This is one of the very best wines of the vintage. Produced from 80% Merlot, 15% Cabernet Franc and 5% Cabernet Sauvignon, this is as vibrant and seductive as anything else we tasted, a wine pulsating with life and allure. An ethereal bouquet of cut flowers, violets, irises, vanilla pod, humidor, crushed stones and Christmas spices vie with vivid blackcurrant, sweet griotte cherries and damsons. A core of vibrant, floral raspberry and crème de mûre saturates the palate, waves of juicy fruit mix with a mineral element, graphite, a touch of oak char, nutmeg and liquorice. There's joy and gravitas here. A harmonious wine of drive, intensity and charm, effortlessly complex and radiant, its echoing tannins enveloping the sublime fruit with floral expression and detail. A beauty!
critic reviews
The 2025 Vieux Château Certan was picked from September 8 to 15 at 22 hl/ha and includes two conjoining parcels normally used for the La Gravette. It is raised in two-thirds new oak, the remainder one-year-old. The Merlot sculpts the bouquet with perfumed red cherries, raspberry, cassis and pressed violet scents that gain intensity in the glass. The oak is seamlessly integrated. The palate is medium-bodied, with powdery tannins on the entry. This must be one of the most peppery VCCs that I have tasted, poivre noir from the Cabernet Franc component. Quite structured, with chalky tannins on the finish, almost as if it came from more limestone soil. Not a crowd pleaser like the 2022, but an intellectual, vertical VCC that will flesh out in barrel. 14.01% alcohol.
Fragrant, full of energy, dense with silky tannins, steals up on you as it opens, and this is a gorgeous wine that deserves attention. Chamomile, cumin, cassis, blackberry, cocoa bean, espresso, fresh thyme, tobacco, layered and luscious. This really stayed with me, and I absolutely recommend it, one of the wines of Pomerol in the vintage. Harvest September 8 to 18. Estate signature, 22hl/h yield, 3.75ph. The first year with Guillaume Thienpont fully in charge, although still working alongside his father Alexandre (who began with his own father in 1985).
Bursting with aromas of violets, crème de cassis, dark berries and creamy new oak, the 2025 Vieux Château Certan is medium- to full-bodied, rich and concentrated, with a sun-kissed core of fruit, ripe acids and a dense, unctuous palate, concluding with a heady finish. A blend of 80% Merlot, 15% Cabernet Franc and 5% Cabernet Sauvignon, it is quite serious and structured, with sweet tannin, and it checks in at 14% alcohol.