Real Pomerol here with black berry, chocolate, hazelnut and walnut aromas and flavors. Dark fruits. Crushed stone. It’s full and intense with great focus. Powerful yet so balanced and intense. Juicy center palate. Fantastic length. Great clarity. Drink after 2028.

99 points, JamesSuckling.com (March 2023)

Tension, structure, complexity, waves of violet, rose petals and slate A serious VCC with tension and poise, this inches open to show graphite, pencil lead and sweet raspberry, blueberry and savoury cassis bud, almost an edge of petrol, elegant and balanced, and with a personality that is going to power through the decades. 50% new oak.

96 points, JaneAnson.com (January 2023)

Moving to the Grand Vin, the 2020 Vieux Château Certan is another legendary wine from this vintage, ranking with the best Bordeaux ever produced. Based on 85% Merlot and 15% Cabernet Franc that spent 18 months in 65% new French oak, it has a deep, powerful, full-bodied style as well as incredible purity and precision in its darker cassis, graphite, gravelly earth, and tobacco-driven aromatics. With perfectly integrated oak, again, incredible purity, and perfect, ultra-fine tannins, it deserves 8-10 years of bottle age and will be a 40- to 50-year wine.

100 points, JebDunnuck.com (March 2023)

The 2020 Vieux Château Certan is a wine of total harmony and finesse. Absolutely nothing is out of place. Supple and seamless, the 2020 is an infant, but it is so impressive. Crème de cassis, lavender, mocha and licorice are some of the many notes that emerge from the glass, but more than anything else, the 2020 is a majestic Pomerol that will thrill those lucky enough to own it. There's not much else to say. The 2020 spent 18 months in barrel, 65% new.

99 points, Vinous (December 2022)

The 2020 Vieux Château Certan was showstopping from barrel sample and, now, in bottle? The nose is exquisitely delineated with perfumed black fruit, crushed rock, hints of pencil box, and a very faint licorice scent in the background. Wonderful focus. The palate has marvelous definition, surfeited with tension from the start. It is a little granular in texture, reminiscent of the 2010 at this same early juncture, magnificent, life-affirming salinity and pepperiness fanning out beautifully on the lace-like finish. It's a profound Pomerol that will age effortlessly over many years. Super-bon. Alexandre Thienpont compared it to the 1945. This is cheaper and easier to find.

97 points, Vinous (December 2022)

A blend of 85% Merlot and 15% Cabernet Franc, the 2020 Vieux Château Certan bursts with aromas of blackberries, sweet spices, rose petals, orange zest, burning embers and violets framed by a deft application of creamy new oak. Medium to full-bodied, deep and concentrated, it's rich and layered, with a more broad, unctuous profile than the pure and refined 2019, concluding with a long, resonant finish. This is more immediate out of the gates than the 2019, and I suspect it will not prove quite as long lived, but it is a terrific effort from the Thienpont family.

97 points, Wine Advocate (April 2023)