Chateau Cantenac Brown (375ML half-bottle) 2009
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Enthusiast
Wine -
Suckling
James -
Spectator
Wine -
Parker
Robert
Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Firmly structured, dark-fruited wine, very solid and dense. It has weight along with black currant fruits and acidity. It's a wine that is rich but seriously structured for aging.
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James Suckling
Wonderful aromas of crushed raspberries, flowers, and hints of vanilla bean. Full body, with silky tannins and a juicy finish. Fresh and minerally.
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Wine Spectator
This is perfumy and very pure, with lovely lilac and blackberry aromas followed by plum, cassis and black cherry fruit. The supple finish is caressed with toast that leaves a lingering, perfumy feel. Best from 2013 through 2023.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Tasted twice in Bordeaux, I must say that whatever was shown to me in cask certainly did not appear to be performing as well from bottle. It could be just that the wine has closed down, but I had thought this was an extraordinary wine and one of the big time sleepers of the vintage. The tannins have taken hold, and although the wine is still outstanding, any hopes of achieving a mid-90 point score, as I had hoped, seem highly questionable. Dense ruby/purple with notes of graphite, blackberries and forest floor, the wine is full-bodied, powerful, excruciatingly tannic and closed, and that may be why it’s not showing as well as I predicted. Certainly, this was the biggest discrepancy between barrel and bottle that I saw in the vintage, but the wine is still outstanding, just not profound. It will be interesting to revisit this wine in a number of years. Forget it for 7-8 years and drink it over the following 30.
The Cantenac Brown soil is typical Medoc gravel. This beautiful, brilliant quartz, formerly called "Medoc diamonds" reflects the sun's rays onto the grapes by day and then releases the heat stored during the day to warm the grapes by night. Cabernets, in particular Cabernet Sauvignons, do well in this soil. They produce fine wines, with an intense bouquet, which are suitable for aging. Merlot, with which they are blended, provides color, richness and smoothness.