100pts Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate
Deep garnet colored, the 2009 Pontet-Canet is a little shut down to begin, but with coaxing this baby is soon firing on all cylinders with a full-throttle nose of chocolate-covered cherries, crème de cassis, boysenberries and spice cake plus tons of kirsch and cranberry sauce sparks and a beautiful undercurrent of emerging tertiary characters: cigar box, sandalwood, chargrill, truffles and cast iron pan. Full-bodied, rich, multilayered and completely seductive, the palate is charged with incredible energy, with a firm backbone of velvety tannins and seamless freshness providing solid grounding and promising a very long life ahead. It finishes with an incredible display of epically long-lasting flavor fireworks. Wow!
WE100 Wine Enthusiast
A superb wine with the purest fruit, great freshness and ripeness. It is certainly structured with dry tannins, while the blackcurrant freshness is also all there. The biodynamic wine has a great limpid, flowing feel, backed by power.
Barrel Sample: 98-100
JD100 Jeb Dunnuck
The 2009 Pontet-Canet continues to just knock it out of the park every time I’ve been lucky enough to drink a bottle, and this beauty was as good as it gets yet again. Deep purple-colored, full-bodied, beautifully concentrated, and just about off the charts in terms of scale and density, it nevertheless just glides across the palate with an ethereal, seamless texture that never seems heavy or cumbersome. This is pure Pauillac in all its glory and is a monumental wine in every way. Drink it any time over the coming 4-5 decades.
Winemaker Notes
Deep purple color. The exceptionally complex nose is dominated by fruits such as blackcurrant and a very noticeable graphite presence. A flowery touch of violets adds extra elegance. In the mouth, the attack is yet powerful and contained. The high in tannins, long and highly refined structure is accentuated by a refreshing acidity. A great Pontet-Canet!