2019 Chateau Pontet-Canet Pauillac Grand Cru Classe 750 ml

“You’re going to ruin your family!”

When Pontet-Canet’s owner, Alfred Tesseron, decided to go fully biodynamic, his neighbors in Bordeaux clutched their pearls. How could this storied second-growth—revered by collectors as a peer of the First Growths—take the unnecessary risk of walking away from chemical herbicides and fungicides to join such a fad?

Almost 20 years later, wines like the 2019 Pontet-Canet show how prescient Tesseron was. His healthy vines weathered the hot and dry summer beautifully, and over a long harvest that ended October 10, delivered pristine fruit. The wine they yielded was a resounding success, with James Suckling calling it “Really amazing…succulent and unadulterated,” and “an absolute joy” in his 99-point review. Wine Enthusiast agreed, calling it “so perfumed…so refined and vibrant.”

We’re thrilled to bring this parcel to you direct from the cool cellars of the Château. Located on the Pauillac plateau directly across from First Growth giant Mouton Rothschild, perhaps Château Pontet-Canet always had the raw material for greatness. But not until it was purchased in 1975 by the Tesseron family did it start to fulfill its lofty potential. Now, this estate is one of the best arguments that the 1855 classification needs a healthy reshuffling. 

It was the leadership of current proprietor Alfred Tesseron that has cemented its place in the pantheon of the best properties of Pauillac. “Throughout history farmers have been laboring, innovating, to get the most fruit possible from their land. All that interests me is what we need to do to get the best quality,” he told us, when we met with him at the estate.