For our en-primeur tasting today the team have visited Vieux Château Certan, one of the most beautiful estates in Pomerol. Here our Wine Director, David Allen MW, tastes a sample of their 2024 wine as he stands surrounded by barrels of the maturing wine.
Vieux Château Certan is a wine estate in the Pomerol appellation on Bordeaux’s Right Bank, known for its rich, deeply colored red wine (usually) based on Merlot. It is consistently rated by judges and the press as one of the very best wines in the world, and achieves correspondingly high prices at auction.
Vieux Château Certan neighbors Pétrus at the top and center of the Pomerol plateau. Most of the vines sit on the famed Gunz gravel terrace, which is made up of large pebbles and clay over an iron-rich subsoil. This is quite fertile, so care must be taken to limit vine vigor in favor of ripening grapes. Around 30 percent of the property lies on deeper clay soils.
The vineyard covers 14 hectares (35 acres) and is one of the largest single block sites in the Right Bank. Many of the vines are 50 years old, with one parcel dating back to 1932. Merlot makes up 65 percent of plantings, split between the clay and clay-gravel soils. 30 percent is Cabernet Franc, which is judged to perform particularly well in the clay-gravel. The remaining 5 percent – the most gravelly areas – is planted to Cabernet Sauvignon. The proportions in the finished grand vin can vary widely from these numbers. For example the 2016 was 85 percent Merlot, while the 2011 included 29 percent Cabernet Franc. Fortunately the château has the reputation of producing great wines in those vintages where both Merlot and Cabernet Franc did well, and in Merlot-dominant years.
Fermentation takes place in temperature controlled oak vats, set at 28C (82.4F). Lots selected for the grand vin are aged for up to 22 months in new French oak. Total annual production for the estate averages around 5000 cases.
The estate’s history dates back to the mid-1700s as part of a larger property owned by the Demay de Certan estate, whose wines were sold as Sertan. The original chateau was built around 1770. The land was divided after the French Revolution, creating Vieux Château Certan, Certan de May and several other properties with Certan in their title.
For much of the 19th Century the estate was regarded as the best in Pomerol. However from the 1870s that position was usurped by Pétrus. In 1924 the property was sold to (Belgian) Bordeaux negociant Georges Thienpoint (d. 1962). He introduced the pink capsule covering the cork. Not only was the color chic at the time, it also allowed him to easily notice if his wines were present in the cellars of his clients. Poor weather in the early 1930s, and the general economic depression, forced Thienpoint to sell Troplong Mondot in Saint-Émilion. No Vieux Château Certan wines were produced from 1931 to 1933.The 1940s brought better fortunes; the vintages of 1945, 1947-49, and 1950 were all superb. However, because the wines were mainly sold through Thienpoint’s Belgian company, they did not gain the international exposure of wines distributed through the wider negociant market. Vieux Château Certan only sold en primeur with the other top Bordeaux wines from the 1980s.
In recent decades Vieux Château Certan has been challenging once more for top position in the appellation. Alexandre Thienpont, who took over the running of the estate for the 1986 vintage, is the driving force behind this resurgence. He is now assisted by his son, Guillaume. He immediately introduced the second wine, and renovated the winery in 1988 and again in 2003.He introduced green harvesting as part of a wider push to reduce yields, and picked the fruit at higher ripeness levels. Alexandre also manages the vineyards of the nearby Le Pin, owned by his cousin Jacques.
To find out more about this wine, its pricing and where to buy it follow this link to the Wine-Searcher website: https://www.wine-searcher.com/find/la+fleur+petrus+pomerol+bordeaux+france/2024
To learn more about the en-primeur process and to follow the campaign as it develops follow this link to the dedicated pages on the Wine-Searcher website: https://www.wine-searcher.com/en-primeur
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2 Comments
Beautiful!
Best thing about this wine and winery… "Good sound / acoustics"… we can hear you now ! 🤣🤣🤣