Suckling just gave bottle score of 99. Galloni just gave a bottle score of 96. 98 from Jane Anson from bottle as well. Some reviewers are in the high nineties and other in the low nineties. Will be a very good bottle of Bordeaux, especially for $85 upon release. Potential 100 pointer as Perrotti-Brown guessed a couple years ago? Most likely not, but all subjective per usual.
So Dunnuck describes the wine as having “quality tannins, good balance, and outstanding length. It warrants 7-8 years of bottle age and will evolve for 30+ years.” Yet, at the same time, “the quality is unquestionably not at the same level.”
Sometimes after reading critic notes, I don’t even think I know what quality means anymore except that big number good. I suppose the new style is also of inferior quality, but that doesn’t necessarily have to be the case.
There’s a curious comment on cellartracker from someone who tasted it in June 2020 and scored it 99 and then tasted it again in Dec 2020 and scored it 94 and wrote “Little deception? I thindk it loosed a little of his splendour from june 2020” I noticed this a while back and wondered if something about the shipping (and/or selection) of samples in June 2020 worked out favorably for initial scores. It’s interesting that the change was evident only 6 months after the initial sample.
I tasted Pontet Canet 2019 for the second time today. Once at home from a bottle they shipped and again tonight at the property. I think it is one of the better vintages of Pontet Canet.
We all have our own taste. But I do not get the reference to Gigondas.
We‘ve had the 2016 (!) some time ago blind. My guess was Sine Qua Non… don‘t get me wrong, it tasted like a great, young, weightless SQN and was of high quality (not Gigondas average) but still I would not buy it.
Bottle variation seems to be the culprit. I goofed on purple pages, I tend to go for the most recent review. In this case I should have looked at the other two.
The first is Jancis Robinson, the other two James Lowther (18 and 17.5). She tasted in London, he tasted in Bordeaux. 2020 was barrel sample. Seems possible the London bottle might have had a rough / lengthy journey.
So I’m curious. The 2018 Southwold Bordeaux tasting was back in January of this year. I know a lot of major critics went, but did not see Jancis or Farr Vintners “chat up” the Pontet Canet in any big way.
Have other major critics commented about 2018 PC in bottle during that tasting, like Vinuous, TWA, etc.?
I’m not a big believer in bottle variation, especially for top Bordeaux wines where they’ve got everything down to a science. Sometimes tasters just have different opinions on different days.
Interestingly, I think Neal Martin has been pretty lukewarm over the past several years on P-C at these Southwold tastings based on his notes. Looking at the aggregate scores from the 2017 vintage tasting, it looked to underperform compared to its peers.
It might not be a big concern for young wines, but if one puts away a case for 20 years and pulls a couple bottles there can be surprising differences. Bottles sealed with natural corks will not have the same consistent amount of oxygen transfer, and lead to a divergence in taste over time. I don’t know why but some estates/years have bigger issues with this than others.
Having experienced this with my own cellar, I now might comment ’ xyz was a great bottle ’ rather than ’ xyz is a great wine ’ …