Winemaker Notes
Blend: 65% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Merlot, 4% Cabernet Franc and 1% Petit Verdot
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
This wine is very true to the vintage. It has an attractive fragrance and great fruit purity, along with touches of wood and black currant. It is a fine wine, while showing the lightness of the year. Barrel Sample: 93-95
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James Suckling
An aromatic wine with exceptional delicacy and suppleness for the vintage, featuring blackberry, mineral, spice and flower character. Very fine tannins. Seamless structure. It’s a wine with a pleasant savory, fruity character that makes you want to drink it. Harmonious. Range: 92-93
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Medium to deep garnet colored, the 2013 Pontet-Canet is evolving into tobacco, new leather and dried mulberries scents with a core of kirsch, baked plums and cigar box plus a waft of Indian spices. Medium-bodied, elegantly styled and wonderfully refreshing in the mouth, it has a solid line of grainy tannins and loads of mineral sparks on the finish.
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Wine Spectator
A lovely, aromatic expression of fresh plum, just-warmed cherry confiture and violet, giving way to a very supple, gentle feel as the silky tannins let the red and blue fruits glide through. Quite pretty and stylish, and a 180-degree turn from the 2011 in style. Very light, pure and balanced. A true display of the vintage. Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot , Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. Barrel Sample: 89-92
One of the world’s most classic and popular styles of red wine, Bordeaux-inspired blends have spread from their homeland in France to nearly every corner of the New World. Typically based on either Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot and supported by Cabernet Franc, Malbec and Petit Verdot, the best of these are densely hued, fragrant, full of fruit and boast a structure that begs for cellar time. Somm Secret—Blends from Bordeaux are generally earthier compared to those from the New World, which tend to be fruit-dominant.
The leader on the Left Bank in number of first growth classified producers within its boundaries, Pauillac has more than any of the other appellations, at three of the five. Chateau Lafite Rothschild and Mouton Rothschild border St. Estephe on its northern end and Chateau Latour is at Pauillac’s southern end, bordering St. Julien.
While the first growths are certainly some of the better producers of the Left Bank, today they often compete with some of the “lower ranked” producers (second, third, fourth, fifth growth) in quality and value. The Left Bank of Bordeaux subscribes to an arguably outdated method of classification that goes back to 1855. The finest chateaux in that year were judged on the basis of reputation and trading price; changes in rank since then have been miniscule at best. Today producers such as Chateau Pontet-Canet, Chateau Grand Puy-Lacoste, Chateau Lynch-Bages, among others (all fifth growth) offer some of the most outstanding wines in all of Bordeaux.
Defining characteristics of fine wines from Pauillac (i.e. Cabernet-based Bordeaux Blends) include inky and juicy blackcurrant, cedar or cigar box and plush or chalky tannins.
Layers of gravel in the Pauillac region are key to its wines’ character and quality. The layers offer excellent drainage in the relatively flat topography of the region allowing water to run off into “jalles” or streams, which subsequently flow off into the Gironde.