Château Pontet-Canet
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Château Pontet-Canet 2011
€93.60 – €102.00Pauillac | Red | 0,75 L
The history of Château Pontet Canet
Chateau Pontet Canet, located in the heart of the Pauillac appellation in Gironde, is a wine estate of 81 hectares. It is part of the AOC Pauillac. Château Pontet Canet produces 300,000 bottles per year. It is one of the few to have known only three families of owners.
It all began in 1705 when Jean François Pontet, an aristocrat and high magistrate of the Médoc, decided to gather lands in the North of Pauillac to create a vineyard as well as an estate with the name of Canet. This is how he associates his name with that of the domain: Pontet Canet, as was regularly done at that time. At the time of the 1855 classification, Château Pontet Canet was included in the list of great classified growths of the Médoc. It is the 5th classified growth in the Medoc.
In 1865, the Château Pontet Canet was taken over by a Bordeaux merchant: Henri Herman Cruse. The Cruse family already owned Château Rauzan Segla and Château Giscours.
He set up a modernization of the structures and asked the help of Charles Skawinski for the creation of a revolutionary cellar. Thanks to this work of modernization and innovation, the Château Pontet Canet acquires a notoriety of force in the world.
Almost a century later, in 1975, Guy Tesseron, winegrower and merchant in Cognac, bought Château Pontet Canet. He decided to entrust the management of the estate to his son in 1994 after 20 years of work at his side. The vision of Alfred Tesseron, his son, was to preserve and experiment with viticultural practices. This consisted in the preservation of the sensitivity of the plants and the preservation of the wine making procedures.
Chateau Pontet Canet will be one of the first chateaux to engage in organic and biodynamic agriculture. But it will also be one of the first châteaux to obtain the double certification in the châteaux belonging to the Grands Crus Classés list.
In 2015, his daughter Justine Tesseron, enters the adventure with the objective to bring even further the castle Pontet Canet while preserving the work of his father. At his side, his brother Noé and his cousins, Mélanie and Philippine, will help him in his efforts. But they will also be the other co-owners of Château Pontet-Canet. Justine brings new energies necessary for the evolution of Château Pontet Canet.
The estate is currently converted to 100% biodynamic but they have also converted to Demeter since 2014. In 2004, 14 hectares of the estate were converted to biodynamic farming. After this more than positive trial, they decided to convert the entire vineyard.
In 2008, to avoid soil compaction and to preserve the old vines, the tractors were replaced by draft horses. There are currently about ten draft horses, a number that will continue to grow and will soon reach 20 draft horses. We also owe the success of Château Pontet Canet to the contribution of technical director Jean Michel Comme for thirty years.
The work of its three families is a total success, the Château Pontet Canet is today a real reference in the wines of Bordeaux.
The vineyard of this castle
Château Pontet Canet is a 81-hectare vineyard with approximately 800,000 vines. The soils are made up of Günzian gravel which rests on a limestone base. The most beautiful grapes of the chateau are given by the oldest parcels dating from the 1940s.
Anchored in a culture of biodynamics, the Château Pontet Canet fitted out an herbal tea room to allow a regulation of the sub-natural. Nettles are used as fertilizer, horsetails as paint. All plants have virtues and Château Pontet Canet provides them. Since 2017, the bunches are sorted and de-stemmed one by one over the vats and then slowly fall in. A way to preserve as much of the fruit as possible. Half of the production is aged in new barrels and the duration of the aging process varies from 16 to 18 months depending on the wine.
The grape variety of the Château Pontet Canet wine is composed of 65% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Merlot, 3% Cabernet Franc and 2% Petit Verdot. The Cabernet Sauvignon brings structure to the wine of Chateau Pontet Canet, it is planted on the gravel surrounding the castle. Then, assembled with Merlot planted on clay-limestone soils.
The wines of Château Pontet Canet are characterized by their incredible purity of expression at the level of the aromas, but also of its texture. We owe this to the biodynamic conversation in the vineyard. Château Pontet Canet does not have a second wine.
Matching and structure of the wines of Château Pontet Canet
Depending on the year, the red wine of Chateau Pontet Canet has very different capacities of keeping. The average ageing capacity is 15 to 30 years. To keep this wine well, it is ideal to store it in an aging wine cabinet between 12 and 14 degrees and in a wine cellar: 10 to 13 degrees and a humidity level between 70 and 75%. It is served at a temperature of around 16 degrees.
The wines of the vineyard have a rare elegance, they are dense and have great energy.
This culture will also have brought more depth with more precise and silky tannins as well as a greater length in mouth. Thanks to its conversion to biodynamism, their wines are in keeping with nature while being precise and pure. For this Pauillac wine, we can remember the vintages of 2017 and 2020, but also 2015, 2016, 2009, 1995,1985.
Pontet Canet wine has a deep purple color with a complex nose full of fresh fruits and mineral notes. In the mouth, we find a great harmony with precise and fine tannins.
To accompany this Bordeaux wine, we recommend red meats in sauce, roast beef with chanterelles, lamb madras or hare à la royale.
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