Château Pontet-Canet 2010 is one of the most celebrated wines in the history of the Bordeaux classification: a Cinquième Cru that received a perfect 100 points from Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate and 100 points from Wine Spectator, who selected it as their Wine of the Year for 2013, establishing it beyond all doubt as a Pauillac of first-growth quality produced with biodynamic viticulture and a commitment to traditional winemaking methods that has transformed the estate’s reputation over the past two decades. The Tesseron family’s decision to pursue full biodynamic certification at Pontet-Canet, completed in 2010, produced in the same year a wine of transcendental quality that became the definitive proof of concept for biodynamic farming at the highest level of Bordeaux classified growth production. Robert Parker described the 2010 as a “seamless, exhilarating Pauillac” that reminded him of the great Château Latour vintages, and Wine Spectator noted the wine’s extraordinary precision, energy and layered complexity as the defining characteristics of a once-in-a-generation Bordeaux achievement.

The 2010 Pontet-Canet is produced from a blend of approximately 65% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Merlot and 5% Cabernet Franc from Pontet-Canet’s 81 hectares of Pauillac vineyards, whose combination of deep gravel and clay soils adjacent to Château Mouton Rothschild provides a terroir of the very highest Pauillac quality. The 2010 Bordeaux vintage itself was exceptional across the Médoc, but the combination of a perfect vintage with the Tesseron family’s fully realised biodynamic programme produced at Pontet-Canet a wine whose quality surpassed even the expectations of the most optimistic vintage assessments. At fifteen years from harvest, this wine is now entering its optimal drinking window, with the extraordinary tannin structure beginning to resolve into the kind of velvet-textured complexity that defines great Pauillac at full maturity.

A 2010 Pontet-Canet is one of the handful of wines that can genuinely be described as historically significant in the context of the modern Bordeaux classification: a fifth growth that received the joint-highest critical recognition from two approved publications, established biodynamic farming as commercially and qualitatively viable at the classified growth level, and produced a wine that is now acknowledged as one of the three or four greatest Pauillacs made in the twenty-first century. Its acquisition at this stage of its development represents an exceptional opportunity.

This is a seamless, exhilarating Pauillac that shows just how extraordinary this vintage is. It recalls the great Château Latour with its precision, depth and extraordinary multi-dimensional qualities. A timeless Bordeaux that will stand alongside the great Pauillacs of any era. — Wine Advocate