2024 Vieux Chateau Certan
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Tasting Notes
Vieux Château Certan was a real highlight of our tastings. The nose offers sweet florals – crystallised rose and violets, with a pleasing herbal lift and crunchy red berries. The palate offers this estate’s trademark elegance, with a streak of spice and a savoury edge. There’s great density here – something Alexandre Thienpont attributes to their old vines. The fruit is concentrated and pure, but the juiciness all framed by firm but fine tannins. Aged in 65% new oak, 13.5% alcohol and 3.7pH. Blend: 71% Merlot, 20% Cabernet Franc, 9% Cabernet Sauvignon
Critic Scores
Average Score
William Kelley, Wine Advocate
Jane Anson, Inside Bordeaux
More reviews and scores
Deep garnet-purple colored. Swans out of the glass with gregarious notes of Morello cherries, juicy blackberries, and fresh raspberries, plus hints of lilac, pencil lead, and mossy tree bark. The medium-bodied palate delivers a sturdy structure of ripe, rounded tannins with seamless freshness and bags of red and black berry flavors, finishing with great length and plenty of minerally sparks.
One of the wines of the vintage, the 2024 Vieux Château Certan is based on 71% Merlot, 20% Cabernet Franc, and 9% Cabernet Sauvignon from vines planted in 2012, and is aging in 66% new barrels. Yields were just 30 hectoliters per hectare. It offers a rare sense of purity and finesse alongside real intensity, with ripe red and black fruits, leafy flowers, spice, and damp earth all emerging on the nose. Medium-bodied on the palate, it has a pure, seamless, and incredibly elegant mouthfeel, ultra-fine tannins, and a great finish. The 2024 checks in at 13.5% alcohol with a pH of 3.7.
A blend of 71% Merlot, 20% Cabernet Franc and 9% Cabernet Sauvignon, the 2024 Vieux Château Certan opens in the glass with brooding aromas of dark berries, cedar, cigar wrapper, crushed mint and loamy soil. Medium to full-bodied, with good density for the vintage and sweet structuring tannins, it concludes with a sapid, slightly earthy finish. Yields after annual sorting came in at 30 hectoliters per hectare, and the wine is being matured in two-thirds new barriques.
About the producer
The original Château at Vieux Château Certan dates back to around 1770 but the modern history of the estate begins in 1924 - the year that Belgian wine merchant Georges Thienpont purchased the property.