2005 Château Pontet-Canet, Pauillac, Bordeaux

The 2005 Pontet-Canet is a heady, exotic wine. Inky dark fruit, mocha, chocolate, liquorice, spice and tobacco are front and centre. Readers will find an unabashedly opulent, full-throttle 2005 with quite a bit more oak influence and overall extraction than is the norm these days. Even so, the 2005 is a young, young wine with a bright future. This is one sexy Pauillac, that's for sure.

Drink 2025 - 2045

Always showing well, this bottle of 2005 Château Pontet Canet was just about pure perfection in a glass. Still youthful ruby/purple-hued, with a gorgeous core of pure cassis and darker currant fruits, it's full-bodied and has a stacked mid-palate, building tannins, and textbook Pauillac graphite, lead pencil, and subtle tobacco and cedar aromas and flavours. 

It's a big, rich, powerful 2005 with flawlessly integrated tannins, remarkable purity, and a finish that won't quit. While it's still another 5-10 years away from being completely mature, it unquestionably offers incredible pleasure today.

Drink 2021 - 2031

Tasted at the Pontet-Canet vertical in London, the 2005 Château Pontet-Canet has long been one of the stars of the vintage, and this might well be the best of over a dozen showings of this wine. However, do not expect ostentation on the nose. This is 2005, and like many wines of this vintage, even with considerable decanting, it remained broody and introspective on the nose, as if it is checking you out and seeing if you are worthy. 

Once you have been accepted, it swings the doors open to reveal gorgeous scents of blackberry, briary and cassis fruit, perhaps a little more sous-bois than I have noticed compared to previous bottles. The palate is medium-bodied but dense and structured—a more masculine Pontet-Canet built for long-term ageing. Yet it retains marvellous freshness and vitality all the way through to the pencil-lead, quite saline finish. 

I suspect that the 2009 Pontet-Canet is more approachable than the 2005, so heeding Robert Parker's sage advice, afford this up to ten years in your cellar and reap the rewards of patience.

Drink 2025 - 2050

Possibly the youngest wine of all the 2005 Médocs in terms of its evolution, at age 10 the inky purple 2005 Pontet-Canet tastes more like a two-year-old wine. Loads of pure blueberry, blackberry and cassis fruit are present, along with a hint of liquorice and background oak. It is full-bodied, ripe, and excruciatingly fresh, vigorous and exuberant. This tour de force and a sensational effort rivalling the first growths. Give it another 5-10 years of cellaring, and drink it over the following 30-40 years.

Drink 2020 - 2065

Rich, fruity blackcurrant nose, exuberant and pure. Very rich but not too dense, with vibrant fruit, formidable but overly chewy tannins. This has power and force, and a textured, layered finish. Very long.

Drink 2018 - 2035

Good full ruby-red. Complex, enticing aromas of black raspberry, liquorice, minerals, bitter chocolate, lead pencil and pungent cedar; just this exotic side. Wonderfully silky, sweet and thick, with a powerful minerality framing the currant, graphite and spice flavours. This boasts superb inner-mouth energy and great length, with the full, ripe tannins totally enrobed by the wine's mid-palate richness. My sample of the 2006 was old and tired, so I'll wait until next year to report on the finished wine; this was a star in the early going.)