14.0 % Alcohol
Tasted 2015-08-20 & 2015-08-21
Deep dark and bright cherry red. Extreme black cherry aromas paired with a touch of licorice and very dark rose petals. In addition a fleshy note which adds to this decadent (in positive sense) smell an animalistic character. On the palate an insane blackberry flash with a terrific smooth and long finish. That's brave, crazy and awesome.
The "Les Hauts De Pontet-Canet" is the second wine of the Pauillac winery Château Pontet-Canet. For the AOC Pauillac an independent company named "Qualisud" is assigned to check the wines of the AOC for instance for "typicality" of the AOC. These checks are done by a jury of five independent experts who are not be paid for this activity. For the 2012 "Les Hauts De Pontet-Canet" this jury stated that the wine does not follow the Pauillac rules for typicality. As a consequence the Château is not allowed to sell the wine with the remark AOC Pauillac on the label. It needed to be declassified to "Vin De France".
Hm. During a California wine tasting I offered this wine as a pirate blind to a friend. He immediately recognized that this must be a Bordeaux wine. And I could bet if I had not told him that at this moment where the wine comes from he would also have recognized the Left Bank family or even more. And again it is allowed to ask if such a jury makes sense or not.
However it is definitely correct that is different to other Pauillac wines in terms of the addressed audience. You can and you should drink it young. At the moment this wine offers such extreme hedonistic joy that it would be shame to avoid this. On the other hand the quality of the Pontet-Canet premium was raised so dramatically in the last decade, accompanied by a tremendous aging potential, that it would be interesting to keep track of this development. I have to think about this - and perhaps buy more:-).
At the moment I would pair it with French breast of duck with port wine sauce.
