94+ Vieux Château Certan has made one of the great wines of the 2012 vintage (no surprise here, as the last swing and a miss here probably dates back to the early 1940s!) and it is destined to be a legendary VCC as the...
94+ Vieux Château Certan has made one of the great wines of the 2012 vintage (no surprise here, as the last swing and a miss here probably dates back to the early 1940s!) and it is destined to be a legendary VCC as the years unfold. The cépages is quite merlot-dominated this year, as Monsieur Thienpont noted that it was particularly fine in this vintage, and the blend is eighty-seven percent merlot, twelve percent cabernet franc and one percent cabernet sauvignon (from the great old vines that still remain here from that variety). Final analysis had not been completed, but the Thienponts expect the wine to come in between 13.4 and 13.5 percent in this vintage. As Alexandre Thienpont commented, “for us, 2012 is very similar to 1985 here at Vieux Château Certan and we expect the new vintage to age very similarly to the ’85.” Harvest began here on October 1st, so the teams waited for the late September rain to work through before starting to pick. The resulting wine is stunning, offering up a beautiful and utterly classic nose of cassis, dark berries, espresso, cigar smoke, gravel, tobacco leaf and a judicious base of nutty new oak. On the palate the wine is pure, full-bodied and shows excellent mid-palate depth, with a supremely elegant profile, suave tannins, bright acids for the vintage and a very long, complex and classy finish. This is not as powerful as the 2005 here, but it is very close in absolute quality in its more elegant and classic style. Just a superb wine. (Drink between 2022-2050)