Château Pontet-Canet 5emé Cru Classé, Pauillac, 2011, 75cl

Dark ruby, purple reflections, subtle ocher rim. Delicate floral notes of wild dark berries, a hint of candied violets, some nougat, cassis, hints of tobacco and liquorice in the background. Juicy, elegant, fresh sweet red cherries, ripe, integrated tannins that give the wine a nice backbone, finesse-rich acidity, mineral and persistent, a little more lightweight than its powerful predecessor; the 2010, but the slightly higher Merlot content is noticeable, already well developed, a balanced food wine.

A wine with lots of ripe berries, verging on dried fruits. Full and chewy with ripe, round, chewy tannins. It needs lots of bottle age. A wine of steel. From biodynamically grown grapes, as always. Better than from barrel. Try in 2018.

So smooth, this is a rich, grandiose wine. Although it is full of black currant fruits and spice flavors, the texture is most impressive. Dusty tannins are integrated with juicy fruits seamlessly. The purest fruit flavors are allied to linear tannins in a precise yet generous way. The wine is evolving beautifully, but do not drink before 2020.

Deep garnet in colour, the 2011 Pontet-Canet comes bounding out of the glass with exuberant notes of redcurrant jelly, warm cassis and blackberry pie plus touches of dried mint, mocha, smoked meats and yeast extract with a waft of pencil lead. Medium to full-bodied, the palate has bags of energy with lively red and black fruits and compelling mineral accents, finishing long with a provocative lift.

A lighter-framed vintage than the 2010, and you see it even in the color of the wine, which is still young but has a trace of rose-pink around the edging. Love the aromatics of smoke, chamomile, and fragrant violet. Touches of russet, autumn-tinged leaf alongside earthy red cherry and raspberry. This is a good choice for drinking now, but it will age because there are plenty of finely placed and integrated tannins. I gave this 95 points last time I tasted this in February 2021, and it is easily one of my favorite 2011s but there is austerity here. Harvest September 15 to 29, with a little more Merlot in the blend than is usual after a dry but not overly hot summer followed by a tricky harvest. 90% of the crop went into this wine, far higher than the first wine of many classifieds in the vintage.