2011 Pontet Canet
Buying options
Tasting notes
Pontet Canet seems every year to move away from the way a normal Pauillac should taste and the 2011 continues on the same path. Cropped at a low 32hl/ha and made from a blend of 60% Cab Sauv, 35% Merlot, 3% Cab Franc and 2% Petit Verdot. it is very delicate on the nose but the palate....it's like a bomb going off! Very dense, muscular almost. The fruit is very ripe and the bright acidity is burried in the flesh and tannin. There is a palpable sense of mineral. Really very good indeed and up there with the best of the Left Bank.
Critic scores
Average Score
Jeannie Cho Lee MW
Jeff Leve, The Wine Cellar Insider
More reviews and scores
The 2011 Pontet Canet has a well-defined bouquet with brambly red fruit, tar and tobacco, classic in style, maybe just missing a little flair? The palate is sweet and rounded in texture, quite extractive with mulberry and gamey notes, fairly bretty towards the almost Rhône-like finish. This is difficult to fathom out, not an unenjoyable wine for sure, yet it is missing typicité . Tasted blind at the annual 10-Year-On tasting.
The year before they went biodynamic. Tasted blind. Mid garnet. Light nose and then notably sweet, fairly soft palate. Simple rather than compelling but not faulty. Rather an austere finish. (JR)
About the producer
Ch. Pontet-Canet is one of Pauillac’s top estates, and one of its largest at 81 hectares. Although classified as a Fifth Growth, these days it consistently competes with the First Growths