2009 Chateau Pontet-Canet Pauillac 750 ml

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. 

When he tasted it on release, Robert Parker called the 2009 Pontet-Canet “a tour de force in winemaking that is capable of lasting 50 or more years.” Fast forward to 2020, when Parker’s Advocate confirmed their boss’s early score, calling the ‘09 “Full-bodied, rich, spicy and oh-so-decadent.”

Having changed hands only twice over two centuries, Château Pontet-Canet boasts a rare ownership legacy in Bordeaux. But it was the Tesserons—the family that owns Château Lafon-Rochet in St.-Estèphe—and 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. 

To that end, he converted their farming to organic, and later biodynamic practices, halting the use of all chemicals, and noticing a better concentration of flavors in the fruit as the years went on. His innovations didn’t stop in the vineyard. Alfred first converted to a gravity-fed facility, avoiding the use of pumps that can extract astringent seed tannins. And Alfred himself designed cement vats and amphorae for fermentation, drawing upon the gravel from the property itself to mix the cement, infusing the wine with the property’s terroir throughout the process.