The first time I visited Pontet Canet was in 2006 and I spent ages chatting to the estate’s director Jean-Michel Comme about his conversion of this most perfectly positioned Pauillacs to biodynamic agriculture. JM’s passion and dedication (bordering on obsession) is infectious and can easily turn you into an evangelist for biodynamics. I remember visiting Latour shortly afterwards and enthusing to them about all the good work they were doing at Pontet Canet; their response was an especially condescending “Good for them…”

Six years on and everyone in Bordeaux has horses, Latour has converted 65% on their vineyards to biodynamics and perhaps the ultimate vindication for JM’s  hard work is the three digit score from Parker for Pontet’s 2009.

Today sees the release of Pontet’s wonderful 2011, priced at £720 it is one of the few wines of the vintage seriously worth buying as a primeur. To give you some idea of how different things are at Pontet Canet; in a vintage where huge quantities of most estates’ wine had to be relegated to second or third labels to maintain quality, Pontet Canet has put 90% of the estate’s production into the grand vin.

As Latour might say “Good for them.”

Simon Davies
Head of Marketing, FINE+RARE