Chateau Pontet Canet Pauillac 2016 750ml (100WE/98WA/98JD)

This is 2005 and like many wines of this vintage, even with considerable decanting, it remained broody and introspective on the nose, as if it is checking you out and seeing if you are worthy. Once you have been accepted, then it swings the doors open to reveal gorgeous scents of blackberry, briary and cassis fruit, perhaps a little more sous-bois than I have noticed compared to previous bottles. The palate is medium-bodied, but dense and structured-certainly a more masculine Pontet-Canet built for long-term ageing. Yet it retains marvelous freshness and vitality all the way through to the pencil-lead, quite saline finish. Tasted at the Pontet-Canet vertical, the Chteau 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.