2022 Ch Pontet-Canet 5ème Cru, Pauillac

What a finish on this Pontet-Canet. So much energy and brightness. It's full-bodied yet so tight and focused with superb fruit and transparency. It is racy and fine with super fine texture. It's like crushed cabernet sauvignon with cassis, tobacco and cigar box. Licorice and spices. Freshness of the seed. 57% cabernet sauvignon, 35% merlot, 4% cabernet franc, and 4% petit verdot.

99-100 points jamessuckling.com

Vivid plum colour, violet reflections, chewy tannins from the first moments. Loaded with cassis, blueberry and fresh fig fruits, laced through with rosemary, sage, dried herbs, edges of chamomile and fresh mushroom. Tight in its tannic structure, with smoked earth, cinammo, cardamom and lavender. Mathieu Bessonnet technical director, and the 47th vintage of owner Alfred Tesseron, 50% new oak, 35% amphora, 15% one year old barrels, 55 year average age of the vines. Harvest September 8 to 28, with clay used as sunscreen on the grapes to avoid sunburn, and a selection before harvest to drop any shrivelled berries.

94 points janeanson.com

The 2022 Château Pontet-Canet is brilliant and should easily be up with the crème de la crème from the Médoc. Based on 57% Cabernet Sauvignon, 35% Merlot, and 4% each of Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot, it was vinified mostly in concrete (there's a small part in wood), and the aging is in 50% new French oak, 35% in amphora, and the rest in once-used barrels. It has an incredibly pure bouquet of cassis, graphite, lead pencil, and scorched earth. This carries to a full-bodied Pauillac with a deep, layered mid-palate, building tannins, and a great finish. It has the purity, richness, and structure that makes this vintage so compelling and is going to be drinkable with just 4-6 years of bottle age but have an incredibly long life.

97-99+ points jebdunnuck.com

The 2022 Pontet-Canet is a blend of 57% Cabernet Sauvignon, 35% Merlot, 4% Cabernet Franc, and 4% Petit Verdot, aging 50% in new oak barrels, 35% in amphoras, and 15% in used barrels. Deep garnet-purple in color, it needs considerable swirling and coaxing to reveal aromas of damp earth, fragrant soil, crushed rocks, and underbrush, giving way to a profound core of blackcurrant cordial, juicy black plums, and fresh blackberries. The full-bodied palate is laden with nuanced black fruits, slowly releasing earthy and mineral-laced flavors, framed by firm, ripe, grainy tannins and seamless freshness, finishing on a lingering fragrant earth note. Talk about tasting the place! This is Pauillac in all its powerful, energetic glory.

“2022 is a very uncommon vintage in Bordeaux,” said Mathieu Bessonnet, winemaker at Pontet-Canet. “Everything took off very quickly, and every month the temperature was above the seasonal average. In April we had a lot of rain, more than average. Perfect flowering occurred. In June, we received 99 mm of rain—again more than average. This was great because the rest of the year was so dry. The heatwave in July slowed the véraison and so it was uneven. We applied chamomile and a sunscreen, made from clay mixed with water, after véraison, so that the skins were protected from sunburn. We had 11 mm of rain in August, which wasn’t much, but it helped the vines a lot. A couple of blocks struggled, so we dropped about 50% of their fruit in early September. We sent our team out to drop all the fruit that was shriveling and kept only the good fruit for three more weeks. We know the vineyard much better now, so we know to wait for certain parcels. The average age of our vines is around 55 years now on the 81-hectare vineyard, making us around the oldest in the region for a vineyard of this size. Our old vines seem to buffer these extreme conditions. But it was a long harvest. We picked between from the 8th of September until the 28th of September. It was the earliest and longest harvest ever at Pontet-Canet. Because véraison was so long, harvest took longer, to wait for everything to ripen. We went very gentle on extraction. The wine is aging very slowly in the barrel. It is maintaining its youthfulness very well, which is unusual for a warmer vintage like this.”

97-99 points LPB thewineindependent.com

(57% Cabernet Sauvignon, 35% Merlot, 4% Cabernet Franc and 4% Petit Verdot, 55-year-old vines. 50% new wood, 35% concrete amphorae and 15% used barriques. The grapes were treated with chamomile and a mixture of baked clay and water protected against the heat. Very strong color and a ripe fruity scent, this Pontet-Canet radiates ripe fruit from the glass, it smells of black cherries, prunes, cassis and liquorice, floral notes resonate. On the palate with a creamy texture, stunning fruit and a lot of structure, the tannins are of the highest quality, the wine has a lot of power and elegance at the same time, and lingers on the finish for a long time. I remember the excellent 2009s and 2010s, this wine is like a symbiosis of them. Large Pontet-Canet cinema.2030-2060 

98-100 points AvV vvwine.ch

Vibrant, vivid purple colour in the glass, rich and deep. Smells bright, super fresh and expressive on the nose with freshly-picked blackcurrants and perfumed purple flowers - the Petit Verdot, really standing out. Clean and clear, creamy, powdery and softly chewy on the palate. The texture is lovely, you can tell they haven't over extracted but there’s still clear concentration with a gentle succulence provided by the acidity, cool freshness and appealing mineral touches alongside liquorice, clove, dried herbs and bitter chocolate. Enjoyable and well defined if still a little compact. 3.85pH. 4% Cabernet Franc completes the blend. 15% press wine used. Harvest 8 - 28 September, the earliest and longest ever. 20% lower yields than in 2021. The technical team used a clay sunscreen on the grapes to avoid burning. Tasted twice.

95 points GH decanter.com