🏅 James Suckling 98 pts
A stunning wine for this vintage although it’s still a bit shy on the nose (more spice than fruit showing than now). There’s wet earth, too, but on the palate it’s bursting with ripe yet subtle flavors. Very long and complex finish that goes on and on.
🏅 Wine Enthusiast 96 pts
This is a finely structured wine with dark tannins and intense black fruits. The estate, with its biodynamically grown fruit, has given an impressively pure wine, packed with tight serious tannins and a fine structure of black-plum skins and intense acidity. It is direct, firm and with a huge potential over many years.
🏅 Jeb Dunnuck 96 pts
A final blend of 65% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Merlot and 5% Petit Verdot, the 2014 Pontet-Canet is brilliant stuff, and I was able to taste this wine from barrel as well as multiple times from bottle, both at the estate and from a bottle purchased in the United States. It offers a sensational bouquet of crème de cassis, black raspberries, tobacco leaf, and minerals, as well as an unmistakable Pauillac lead pencil characteristics that I just adore. Possessing full-bodied richness, a rounded, surprisingly opulent, sexy texture, awesome purity, and sweet, succulent tannin, it’s a sensational 2014 that might just surpass what they accomplished in 2015. This is a 2014 you won’t regret buying in bulk as it’s going to keep for 2-3 decades and be drinkable for the vast majority of it. Bravo to Alfred Tesseron and his team!
🏅 Wine Advocate 95 pts
Deep garnet with a hint of purple to the color, the 2014 Pontet-Canet gives a very serious, classic Pauillac nose of blackcurrant preserves, baked blackberries and warm black plums with suggestions of menthol, pencil lead, woodsmoke, cassia and cast-iron pan plus a hint of baking spices. Medium to full-bodied, it fills the mouth with black and blue fruit preserves with a rock-solid frame of grainy tannins and bold freshness, giving lift to the long, exotic spice-laced finish. It is approachable now, but really should start to make jaws drop in another 4-5 years.
🏅 Vinous 93 pts
The bottle of 2014 Pontet-Canet showed better than the previous one at the 10-Year-On tasting in London. Thisoffers much more restraint on the nose. lt's quite precise, with greater mineralité seeping through the black cherryand cassis fruit. The palate has a sorbet-fresh entry, fine tannins and a silky sheen. The oak is fully subsumed aftera decade, plus there is a little more depth on the finish compared to previous showings. This is a fine example ofthe vintage, and bottles should drink well over the next 12 to 15 years. Tasted from an ex-chateau bottle at thePontet-Canet dinner in Washington DC.
🏅 Wine Spectator 93 pts
This delivers a notable menthol note, showing an ample core of well-steeped blackberry, plum and black currant fruit. A bright anise streak checks in on the back end, with a slightly loamy structure imparting a broad feel through the finish. Needs to pull together a bit more, but the fruit is there.
