From magnum, a youthful colour, reflecting slow evolution. Aromas of cedar, lead pencil, roasted and primary fruit. Fine grained, noticeable tannin. Excellent balance of power and smooth texture. Noé Tesseron described it as 'older school Pauillac', and I liked it a lot. Long finish. Aged 60% new oak.

Deep red-ruby. Explosive nose combines raspberry, roasted currant, grilled nuts and exotic spices. Rich, sexy, silky and full in the mouth, with expressive flavors of black raspberry, game, smoke and truffle. Finishes with strong but suave tannins and excellent length. St. Julien - By Stephen Tanzer on May 2003

Tasted at the Pontet-Canet vertical, the 2000 Château 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. There is an intensity here, if not the complexity of the best millennial Pauillacs. The palate is medium-bodied with a mixture of red and black fruit, cedar and sous-bois percolating up through and rendering it a "serious" Pontet-Canet in keeping with the vintage. There is a subtle and yet insistent grip on the finish. It has always been a tannic wine, but these are now softening, albeit at a slower pace than some might like. Therefore, I might be inclined to hold on to bottles for another 3-4 years. Tasted February 2016. - Neal Martin

A lovely lead-in of singed cedar and vanilla notes gives way to slightly taut, racy red and black currant fruit flavors that drive nicely through an iron-edged finish. Rather sleek and tightly focused, relying more on minerality than power.—2000 Bordeaux blind retrospective (December 2015). Drink now through 2023. – JM