2015 Vieux Chateau Certan Pomerol 750 ml

The Wine Access members who get to this bottle will be able to boast of a special and rare thrill. At some point in the coming years, they will go down into their cellars and find there waiting for them the signature pink-capsuled bottle of the iconic 2015 Vieux Château Certan—one of the greatest wines of the vintage, and perhaps ever made in Pomerol.

Three 100-point scores attest to the magnificence, statuesque structure, and otherworldly quality of this release. Deep, glistening, opaque ruby, with beautifully delineated and chiseled aromas of cedar, rose petals, truffle, and violets. Plush on the attack, infused with wild black plum and sweet oak spice, the fine tannin architecture brackets all the phenomenal opulence of the monumental 2015 vintage.

“These are heavenly, magical wines that could not be any better,” wrote Jeb Dunnuck in his perfect score review. “Wine doesn’t get any better, and I only wish every reader could taste this beauty.”

“It takes you to another space and plane,” wrote James Suckling, also with 100 points. Completing the hat trick was Vinous, where Antonio Galloni described it as “a sumptuous, spectacularly ripe Pomerol” that is “a tremendous showing.” Longtime chronicler of Bordeaux’s greatest, Neal Martin, weighed in too, finding this bottle “clearly destined to be one among the canon of legendary wines from the estate.”

Vieux Château Certan has traditionally been thought of as the one true competitor to the stratospherically priced Pétrus, which is considered by some to be the world’s greatest wine. The two estates share the same blue clay streak in the appellation’s eastern area, and their 2015s both earned three flawless scores. 

While Pétrus runs to $3,799 a bottle, this Vieux Château Certan—which we have been unable to allocate for three years due to its miniscule production—is $379. Hailing from a classic vintage of flamboyant opulence, if you’re in any way serious about collecting great Bordeaux, you can’t miss this one.

Among the oldest estates in Pomerol, Vieux Château Certan’s history dates back to the mid-1700s, and the property was purchased by the Thienpont family in 1924. That’s a name that will be familiar to Bordeaux lovers—the Thienpont clan also owns the neighboring micro-estate of Le Pin, at times the world’s most expensive wine.

Neighboring on L’Évangile and La Conseillante, and sharing the famous vein of pure clay that elevates the wines of Pétrus, Certan is dominated by Merlot, but draws significant power from the Cabernets that thrive in its gravelly plots. It’s a Pomerol that shares the style of the grand wines of the Left Bank. The farming focuses on balance, and with balance comes elegance and riper, fuller tannins, leading to wines that are delicious out of the gate but add weight, complexity and charm after decades of aging.

Not long after acquiring the property on the Pomerol plateau, the Thienpont family released a run of historic wines. Certan developed a reputation as being second only to Pétrus in the Pomerol hierarchy, and that late-1940s era is widely thought of as Vieux Château Certan’s golden age. 

That common belief is being shaken as consensus builds that the 2015 Vieux Château Certan is a Pomerol classic with few precedents, signaling that the chateau’s glory days are upon us right now. Collectors, take note. It may be another three years (or more) before we get our hands on another allocation, and who knows when we will see the bold ripeness of 2015 again.