2025 Château Pontet-Canet, Pauillac

The 2025 Pontet-Canet was picked between September 2 and 23 and matured in 50% new oak barrels, 35% amphorae and 15% used barrel. The alcohol this year is 13.3%. This has a more fruit-driven bouquet than its peers, with upfront blackberry and blueberry fruit, a little floral in style, with hints of pressed violet that emerge with aeration. Fine delineation. This is finely balanced, quite flinty on the back palate, edgy with pleasing focus. Just a touch of black pepper towards the composed finish. Just the right amount of grip here. Not quite as long as you would find in warmer vintages, but that is moot because of the freshness and brightness in this Pontet Canet.

Inky but vivid bright plum colour, tannins at the front of the mouth, a ton of energy, if reserved at this early stage. Expect graphite and crayon, lovely lift and floral Cabernet Sauvignon character; low yields like much of Pauillac and small berries ensuring the tannins are plentiful. Walks the line of fresh and juicy flavours alongside a brooding concentrated architecture, huge ageing potential with cold ash and gunsmoke nuance. Although there was some rain at end of June and July, this was still a dry vintage, and vineyard work including braiding the vines for shade and applying chamomile as sunscreen, so they coped better than in 2022 overall. Harvest September 2 to 23, indigenous yeasts that are specific to the vintage, 40% new oak, 35% clay amphoras, 15% one year old barrels. Extended maceration, low SO2 with zero added until after fermentation.

A blend of 56% Cabernet Sauvignon, 39% Merlot, 4% Cabernet Franc and 1% Petit Verdot that weighs in at 13.3% alcohol, the 2025 Pontet-Canet is one of the finest wines this estate has produced. Wafting from the glass with aromas of sweet cassis, wild berries and plums mingled with notions of violet and burning embers, it's full-bodied, ample and velvety, with a degree of structural polish and sensuality that is rare in the Médoc, ripe acids and a long, penetrating finish. Over the last handful of years, technical director Mathieu Bessonnet and his team have revitalized Pontet-Canet's vineyards with well-timed soil work and precise phytosanitary treatments; and since 2023, the careful use of "pieds de cuve" in the winery, along with early blending, more refined barrel choices and cooler temperatures in the chai—plus more precise bottling practices—have conspired to take this estate to new heights of quality and consistency. In 2025, the team formed lower-than-usual "ponts" (whereby the canopies of adjacent vines are braided together in an arch) to retain denser foliage to protect the fruiting zone from sunshine, and they waited to pick late in pursuit of full maturity in Cabernet Sauvignon, finishing on September 23. The result is one of the wines of the vintage.

The 2025 Pontet-Canet is a wine of exquisite class. Silky, aromatic and vibrant, the 2025 is all finesse. Crushed red/purplish fruit, lavender, rose petal and a gentle hint of spice are all wonderfully knit together. Pontet-Canet is one of the more refined, sublimely beautiful wines of the year. Tasted two times.