Chateau Pontet Canet 2000

JAMES SUCKLING: "Extremely rich and decadent with leaf, meat and spice aromas. Ripe fruit too. Lots of toasted wood. Full and mature now. Lovely to drink now. Gorgeous."

WEINWISSER: "Extrem dichtes Violett-Pupur, schwarze Reflexe. Traumhaftes, klassisches Pauillac-Bouquet, Brombeeren, würziges Terroir, Trüffeltouch, schwarze Edelhölzer. Fleischiger, dichter Gaumen, recht feine Tannine, wiederum eine tolle, reife Cabernet-Aromatik, viel blaue und schwarze Beeren, noch sanft aufrauhende Gerbstoffe im Nachklang, dem Wein einen fast mächtigen Charakter gebend. Ein Topwein, enormes Lagerpotential."

FALSTAFF: "Dunkles Rubingranat, violette Reflexe. Süße Nase, zart nach Honig, saftige dunkle Beerenfrucht, zarte Röstaromen. Komplex, elegant, saftig und frisch strukturiert, gute, ausgewogene Tannine, vielschichtig, ein finessenreicher Wein mit Zukunft."

THE WINE ADVOCATE: "Tasted at the Pontet-Canet vertical, the 2000 Château Pontet-Canet is perhaps where things start getting interesting, as Alfred Tesseron's top-to-toe reconfiguration of the vineyard and vinification began to impact and ameliorate the wine. It has a lovely bouquet of blackberry and briary fruit, hints of black truffle developing, later damp earth. There is an intensity here, if not the complexity of the best millennial Pauillacs. The palate is medium-bodied with a mixture of red and black fruit, cedar and sous-bois percolating up through and rendering it a "serious" Pontet-Canet in keeping with the vintage. There is a subtle and yet insistent grip on the finish. It has always been a tannic wine, but these are now softening, albeit at a slower pace than some might like. Therefore, I might be inclined to hold on to bottles for another 3-4 years. Tasted February 2016."

WINE SPECTATOR: "A lovely lead-in of singed cedar and vanilla notes gives way to slightly taut, racy red and black currant fruit flavors that drive nicely through an iron-edged finish. Rather sleek and tightly focused, relying more on minerality than power.--Blind 2000 Bordeaux retrospective (December 2015). Drink now through 2023. 22,917 cases made."

THE WINE CELLAR INSIDER: "Solid example of classic Pauillac, focusing on the cedarwood, tobacco, ash, cigar box and bright red fruits with a blast of cassis in the finish. There is a touch of dryness in the endnote. Give it an hour or 2 in the decanter."

WINE ENTHUSIAST: "This is a very modern style of wine, with generous new wood and super-ripe fruit flavors, balancing with polished solid tannins. Very international in style, it is good, but could come from anywhere."