Pontet-Canet

Things feel a little bit more controlled at Pontet-Canet these days. That’s not a bad thing. In the past, I felt the ‘that’s the wine the vintage gave us’ approach was a bit too loose at times. “We started to see above average temperatures in March,” Technical Director Matthieu Bessonnet told me. “There was a bit of frost in early April, and then a good bit of rain. Flowering took place in May. It was short and homogenous. We received 90mm of rain in June but avoided mildew pressure. Veraison was quite long. Bessonnet opted for ten small ferments, each started with a pied de cuve, whereas in the past, each of the 60 fermentation vats was allowed to follow its own path. The results are pretty striking at this stage.