Pontet-Canet

History

Pontet-Canet takes its name from Jean-François de Pontet, a governor of Médoc who assembled the estate in the eighteenth century. The property passed through several hands before being acquired by the négociant house Cruse in the nineteenth century, under whom it was bottled and sold primarily through the trade rather than at the château. That arrangement kept the wine commercially prominent but did little to sharpen its identity. In 1975, Guy Tesseron, a Cognac merchant who had already acquired Lafon-Rochet, purchased Pontet-Canet, and the estate began a slow reorientation toward quality. His son Alfred Tesseron took a more active role from the 1990s onward and drove the transformation that defines the estate today. The decision to pursue biodynamic certification, completed in 2010, was among the most consequential commitments made by any classified Bordeaux estate in recent decades, and it attracted attention well beyond France. Pontet-Canet has been consistently cited as the overperformer of the 1855 classification, a Fifth Growth whose wines regularly trade at and sometimes above Second Growth prices.

Vineyards

The estate sits on a single large block directly adjacent to Mouton Rothschild, on the deep Garonne gravel ridges that define the finest Pauillac sites. The soils are classic Médoc: well-drained glaciofluvial gravel over clay and limestone subsoils, oriented to warm quickly in the growing season and shed excess moisture. The contiguous nature of the holding is relatively unusual in the Médoc and allows for consistent farming management across the entire property. Pontet-Canet converted to full biodynamic agriculture and received Demeter certification, making it one of very few classified growths to do so. Horses are used for plowing between vine rows to avoid soil compaction. The estate farms a substantial area under vine, planted primarily to Cabernet Sauvignon with meaningful proportions of Merlot and smaller amounts of Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot.

Winemaking

The cellar underwent significant investment alongside the farming changes. Fermentation takes place in a mix of vessels including concrete vats and, notably, large amphora-style clay jars, which Pontet-Canet adopted earlier and more extensively than most Médoc estates. Native yeasts are used. The wines are aged in a combination of new and used oak barrels, with new oak levels moderated compared to earlier vintages, a direction consistent with broader stylistic shifts in the Médoc since the mid-2010s. The grand vin is built for long aging but has shown approachability earlier than the estate's older reputation suggested. Les Hauts de Pontet-Canet serves as the second label, drawing on younger vines and declassified lots. The estate releases its wines through the Place de Bordeaux en primeur system, and its barrel samples have attracted some of the most discussed scores in Pauillac during the strong vintages of the 2018 to 2022 run.