2024 Vieux Château Certan, Pomerol

DUE OCT/NOV 2027

One of the wines of the vintage, the 2024 Vieux Château Certan is based on 71% Merlot, 20% Cabernet Franc, and 9% Cabernet Sauvignon from vines planted in 2012, and is aging in 66% new barrels. Yields were just 30 hectoliters per hectare. It offers a rare sense of purity and finesse alongside real intensity, with ripe red and black fruits, leafy flowers, spice, and damp earth all emerging on the nose. Medium-bodied on the palate, it has a pure, seamless, and incredibly elegant mouthfeel, ultra-fine tannins, and a great finish. The 2024 checks in at 13.5% alcohol with a pH of 3.7.

94-96 points jebdunnuck.com

A really classic VCC with such delicious, crunchy fruit, showing blackberries, blueberries, violets and dried spices. Medium-bodied, vivid and lively, it has very fine tannins as well as energy and brilliance. So balanced and harmonious. A blend of 71% merlot, 20% cabernet franc and 9% cabernet sauvignon.

97-98 points jamessuckling.com

A blend of 71% Merlot, 20% Cabernet Franc and 9% Cabernet Sauvignon, the 2024 Vieux Château Certan opens in the glass with brooding aromas of dark berries, cedar, cigar wrapper, crushed mint and loamy soil. Medium to full-bodied, with good density for the vintage and sweet structuring tannins, it concludes with a sapid, slightly earthy finish. Yields after annual sorting came in at 30 hectoliters per hectare, and the wine is being matured in two-thirds new barriques.

91-93 points robertparker.com

Violet ruby with a vibrant rim, reflects the savoury vivid quality of the vintage in the wines that deliver. Clear chamomile tea, fragrant white blossom, redcurrant, blueberry, a touch of austerity and reserve compared to the past few vintages, but with purity and finesse, mouthwatering finish, 30hl/h yield, 3.7ph, harvest 20 September to 2 October. 3.70 pH, and a high Cabernet character in the final blend (despite one block less of Cabernet Franc after replanting), 66% new oak. An enjoyable wine from Alexandre Thienpont.

94 points janeanson.com