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"Le château Pontet-Canet est le seul domaine parmi les grands cru classés du Médoc à être certifié agriculture bio et de surcroit agriculture bio-dynamique." Something that could not have been imagined twenty years ago: a classified vineyard (5ème Cru) - one of the largest in the Médoc - working consistently biodynamically. Château Pontet-Canet has meanwhile become the flagship estate of the organic movement in the Bordelais, actually - to be precise - it is the up-and-comer of the past few years in the Médoc. The "rise" started - still without biodynamics - as early as in the 1990ies, when Jean-Michel Comme took over the "direction" on the estate (1988). Who would have thought at that time that 15 years later, an almost revolutionary cultural change would take place on the wine estate (80 hectares)? But Jean-Michel Comme was able to convince Alfred Tesseron - the owner of the winery - to dare the experiment "organic", first on a small vineyard, until then in 2008 the whole farm - all processes and methods - had been converted.

The 1990 was a wine that polarized. The winery had difficulties to make it palatable to the Courtiers (Bordeaux system). René Gabriel gave it just 15/20 points: "Soft fruit, horsey, leathery and stalky underneath." It's wonderful to see how the years have brought changes since the barrel tasting. Last entry from René Gabriel (in 2008): "At a dinner on Pontet-Canet. Deep, smoky, discreet. Palate with prominent tannins, lots of muscle, medium meaty proportions, food wine" (17/20).

Whatever a food wine is, can be or could be, we opened it for dinner on the terrace. Somehow it matched the oncoming thunderstorm: a hot but beautiful summer evening turned into a stormy experience. The wine, too, gradually underwent a transformation in the carafe from a well-behaved wine to a striking event. Not as stormy as the hurricane-like thunderstorm, but eventful, unique, slowly opening, like the rose of Jericho. Suddenly the wine was there: without thunder and lightning (it is far too earthy for that), but eerily present, a warm, incisive Pauillac, unique in its way. In spite of Gabriel: 18 points!

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