2016 Château Pontet-Canet

Red Bordeaux Blend

PanosKakaviatos Likes this wine: 98 points

November 12, 2018 - Northern Médoc sweet spots: pricey and not so pricey (The Médoc): Well, there was little surprise when I visited this great estate, so famous for its organic direction and its replacing oak barrels with egg shaped concrete amphorae to bring out the fruit more, and the oak less. It was sad news, however, to hear from owner Alfred Tesseron that the estate lost much of its potential harvest because of the spread of mildew in 2018. But that is another story. How was the 2016 from bottle? Nothing short of being among my top wines of the vintage! The nose is saline smooth. The palate is again smooth and (very) refined with much nuanced depth, subtle opulence and Pauillac power. This has 14.5 alcohol, but such a nice balance as the finish is marked by a tonic, thirst quenching aspect. Think of seashells and rolling waves. Just lovely! For the owners, 2010 and 1961 are references and 2016 is comparable to both. But I find the 2016 more nuanced than the 2010. A tour de force. 98+ For more information with pictures: http://wine-chronicles.com/blog/northern-medoc-2016-bottle/

10 people found this helpful 17,357 views

vintage1949 commented:

5/31/19, 1:18 PM - Greetings-Thanks for posting the message about the wine chronicles. Found the article immensely interesting. Confirmed my decision to buy half a case. (Since I am 70 years old buying only half a case.) Picked up some 2015 so it will be great fun to compare.—-Dave

P.S. Yout TN was also impressive.
srh commented:

12/12/20, 1:35 PM - THANK you so VERY much for ALL your efforts in composing/entering this TN as well as the others that are also part of this tasting story! 🙂
PanosKakaviatos commented:

1/30/21, 9:27 AM - Thank you for reading my notes! And subscribing to wine chronicles. I hope to organise personalized tours to Bordeaux once this pandemic is over. Let me know if that would interest you. As for Pontet Canet, having tasted the 2018 from bottle, I think that the 2016 is the better wine of the two vintages.