Chateau Pontet-Canet Paulliac 2019

It’s madness not to have this in your cellar at $149.95! 2019 vintage, 100-pointer, and James Suckling's #6 French wine of 2022! A BIG-time Bordeaux beauty to be treasured! This limited new parcel of Pontet-Canet is sensational... get a few to drink and a few to lay down as an investment! A legend in the making!

Did we say 100 points? Well, it’s also JS99, D98, WE97-99, etc., etc. So, yeah…Chateau Pontet Canet! Led by the irrepressible Alfred Tesseron, who famously brought the Chateau back into rockstar status during the 90s (when most of the First Growths with similar press were selling for 3-4 times as much). Leaving behind conventional vine growing techniques in order to embrace organic and biodynamic methods, they have allowed the terroir to reclaim its origins. Speaking of terroir, Pontet Canet happens to be perfectly situated in Paulliac’s gravelly Rodeo Drive, next to Mouton Rothschild.

The 2019 Bordeaux Vintage is one for the ages. At En Primeur, which serves as the sort of debutante ball for each new vintage of Bordeaux, seasoned critics, vintners, and lucky interlopers like me were absolutely gobsmacked at the amazing offerings from all the top estates – the freshness, the lift, the refined power, just brilliant! Pontet Canet was undoubtedly one of the highlights, with an elegance and purity that sets this wine as potentially one of the best ever for the historic estate. With a blend of 65% cabernet sauvignon, 30% merlot, 3% cabernet franc, and 2% petit verdot, the wine just offers EVERYTHING - power, balance, harmoniousness, concentration, elegance… and more. A few choice snippets from the critics: “...Particularly successful during En Primeur, and even better now, just bursting out of the glass…Such gorgeous aromatics of freshly picked violets, cherries, and bramble fruits - pretty and quite delicate…The length is rather endless…This is just such a great wine, everything you want and you know there's power there promising a long life.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself! Not much to go ‘round, unfortunately, and with a pedigree like this, in a monumental vintage like 2019… move quickly is my best advice! While it lasts!