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2012 Vieux Chateau Certan

Not Currently In Auction

Latest Sale Price

August 28, 2022 - $170

Estimate

RATINGS

96Vinous / IWC

Forward and open-knit with that classic sense of translucent beauty that is the most identifiable attribute of VCC, the 2012 is simply magnificent. Veins of minerality give the wine its precision and energy, while lifted notes of sage, lavender, mint and tobacco captivate all the senses.

95The Wine Advocate

The palate is medium-bodied with fine tannin, quite gentle as it sashays across the mouth. The acidity is very well judged and leads to an elegant tobacco tinged finish.

95Wine Enthusiast

This wine is already so delicious, it's initially hard to find the structure. Packed with black fruits, it has velvet tannins that only slowly reveal their power. Layers of generous Merlot give the ripest black plum flavors.

94Wine Spectator

Very distinctive, with a terrific smoldering tobacco and charcoal frame around a core of steeped fig, blackberry and plum fruit. The fruit drapes beautifully across the finish, while the charcoal edge extends on and on, picking up warm stone, chestnut and alder notes along the way.

94James Suckling

So complex and pure with mushrooms, tobacco, chocolate and berries. Full-bodied yet refined, fresh and lively. The texture is so silky and intense. A real beauty and balance that both make you want to drink it.

18Jancis Robinson

Lift, fragrance, almost stereotypical Margaux on the nose! Really very attractive indeed. Liquorice and lovely fruit. Throbbing with life.

REGION

France, Bordeaux, Pomerol

Pomerol is the smallest of Bordeaux’s red wine producing regions, with only about 2,000 acres of vineyards. Located on the east side of the Dordogne River, it is one of the so-called “right bank” appellations and therefore planted primarily to Merlot. Pomerol is unique in Bordeaux in that it is the only district never to have been rated in a classification system. Some historians think Pomerol’s location on the right bank made it unattractive to Bordeaux-based wine traders, who had plenty of wine from Medoc and Graves to export to England and northern Europe. Since ranking estates was essentially a marketing ploy to help brokers sell wine, ranking an area where they did little business held no interest for them. Pomerol didn’t get much attention from the international wine community until the 1960s, when Jean-Pierre Moueix, an entrepreneurial wine merchant, started buying some of Pomerol’s best estates and exporting the wines. Today the influential Moueix family owns Pomerol’s most famous estate, Château Pétrus, along with numerous other Pomerol estates. Pomerol wines, primarily Merlot blended with small amounts of Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon, are considered softer and less tannic than left bank Bordeaux.