Canon St-Emilion 2012

94 points Neal Martin (Wine Advocate): "Tasted from several bottles in recent months, the 2012 Canon is a stupendous wine for the vintage and if anything, it appears to be improving with each encounter. It clearly serves up more than enough volume and fruit intensity on the nose compared to the impressive 2011 Canon: it is very pure with black cherries, wild strawberry, asphalt and blood orange. This is very well defined and beautifully focused. The palate is medium-bodied, silky smooth and with that thrilling sense of frisson. There is so much vivacity wound up inside this Saint Emilion that it would not surprise me if it turns out to be one of the very best in 2012. Tasted January 2017. Drink: 2020-20245. (Mar 2017)"

92-94 points Wine Enthusiast: "This dense, extracted wine has dark coffee and bitter chocolate flavors that are followed by wood and tannins. The fruit is still obscured, and may need many years for its dark character to emerge. (Apr 2013)"

93+ points Jeb Dunnuck: "The 2012 Canon is a rich, smoky, meaty 2012 that checks in as blend of 70% Merlot and 30% Cabernet Franc. Ripe black cherries, melted licorice, chocolate, and a touch of scorched earth all emerge from this classic, structured effort that has terrific concentration, a pure, backward style, ripe tannin, and a great finish. It’s nowhere near ready for primetime (this wine didn’t start to open up until the second day after opening) and needs a solid 5-7 years of cellaring but will see its 30th birthday in fine form. Drink: 2023-2043. (2/15/18)"

93+ points John Gilman (View From the Cellar): "Château Canon is one of the top wines yet again in St. Émilion in the 2012 vintage, despite the percentage of the blend undergoing malo in barrel creeping up to thirty percent in this vintage (it was about twenty-five percent in 2010- though I am not sure when this practice started here). The cépages this year is seventy percent merlot and thirty percent cabernet franc, the alcohol content is fourteen percent, and the wine was raised in eighty percent new wood. The harvest started here on October 3rd for the merlot, and was completed by October 16th for the last of the cabernet franc. The superb nose offers up a ripe and very pure blend of blackberries, black cherries, menthol, Cuban tobacco, a great base of soil, espresso and a stylish base of nutty new oak. On the palate the wine is pure, full-bodied and rock solid at the core, with ripe tannins, excellent focus and balance and a long, nascently complex and very, very classy finish. A beautiful Canon in the making. 2025-2070. (Mar/Apr 2013)"

93 points James Suckling: "A red with blueberry, blackberry and walnut character. Chocolate too. Medium to full body, fine tannins and a fresh finish. This is tight and dense. Extremely polished tannins and a long finish. Another 2001. Better in 2018. (2/8/15)"

93 points Andrew Jefford (The World of Fine Wine): "Dark black-red. Very fine fruit qualities come singing from the glass: pure, ripe black cherry and fresh plum, with a little blackberry sweetness behind. A classically Burgundian Canon, in sum. Vivid, fresh, clean, lively, and long on the palate. You could argue that 2012 is a vintage that should be based on fruit above all... If so, here it is, in concentrated yet graceful form. There are some soft backing tannins and penetrating if rounded acidity to lift the wine, too, and it has remarkable aromatic finesse. Very impressive, stylish Canon with huge fruit penetration. 2018–26."