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- The Pontet-Canet 2019, which James described as “subtle”, “sophisticated” and “thought-provoking”.
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- James tastes with Justine Tesseron, whose family owns Pontet-Canet.
Chateau Pontet-Canet, the idiosyncratic fifth growth of Pauillac, set the tone for Bordeaux 2019 en primeur or futures, releasing its high-quality wine at more than one-third less than its 2018. Wine merchants in Bordeaux reported that their email inboxes were filling with orders.
One London wine merchant was already offering six bottles of the 2019 for £367 compared to £648 for the 2018.
“Great wines are for pleasure and I try to bring more happiness to this crazy world!” said Alfred Tesseron, owner of Pontet-Canet, through an email a few minutes ago. The property grows all of its grapes biodynamically and adheres to some unorthodox winemaking techniques for the region such as fermenting and aging part of its production in amphoras and aging in large used wooden casks. This year I found the 2019 exceptional and one of the best I tasted so far out of the more than 750 wines. I have about 200 more to taste.
My best wines so far have been three first growths – Lafite, Margaux and Mouton as well as second growth Ducru-Beaucaillou. These all could be perfect wines once I review them in bottle in 2022. And there are many other excellent wines. I find the vintage to be outstanding and at the same quality as the extraordinary 2018 but the young wines show more classic, even traditional style with fine tannins and bright and vibrant acidity. Alcohols are slightly less in the blend than most 2018s. Check out my first report on the vintage.
It’s hard to generalize about it being a Right or Left Bank vintage or particularly great in one district over another. I do have a slight preference for the northern Medoc with St.-Estephe and the north of Pauillac being the sweet spots in my tastings as well as St.-Emilion. Some chateaux such as Pontet-Canet clearly made a better 2019 than 2018 from what I tasted from barrel.
I have been tasting samples in my office in my wine bar and restaurant in Hong Kong and the wines have showed very well. It usually took samples about two or three days to arrive from Bordeaux with DHL or FedEx. The wines were tasted a day or two after arriving in Hong Kong. I also conducted regular Zoom interviews and tastings. It’s almost better than being in Bordeaux. It’s certainly easier!
“I think everyone just wants to get
on with things – lots of wine, prices
should be reasonable, overall
quality is good”
– Shaun Bishop of JJ Buckley
The big question I had after substantiating the very good to excellent quality of the wines from simple Bordeaux to grand chateaux was if anyone would want to buy them as futures. Some key trade members in London and Hong Kong certainly were not interested and sent emails to winemakers and merchants asking them to forego sales or at least delay them. Some American wine merchants were not sure what to make of the whole thing as they still had to contend with trade tariffs as well as the decimated economy and COVID-19.
“I think everyone just wants to get on with things – lots of wine, prices should be reasonable, overall quality is good, etc, etc,” said Shaun Bishop of JJ Buckley in Oakland, California, by email. “But tariffs will remain the obstacle in the U.S. (at least for us). I don’t want to take the risk that tariffs go up, if I cannot cancel my orders. What if the price of Chateau X comes down from 100 Euros to 75 Euros, but tariffs go up 50 percent between the time I buy and the time I take delivery? Sorry, but retailers and end-clients should not be the ones to take this risk.”
Yet some other wine merchants in other parts of the world are okay with the idea of en primeur 2019, according to chateaux owners and managers. “When the crisis started for us, I wrote to more than 100 clients around the world and I asked their opinion on whether to have the en primeur campaign or not, and most of them answered that they want to have an en primeur campaign because they need Bordeaux for their business,” said Veronique Sanders, the head of Chateau Haut-Bailly. “I was surprised to see how attached they were to the en primeur campaign.”
“So I think it’s positive that Bordeaux makes the move despite the conditions, despite the complexity of launching this vintage,” she added. “I think we should all say thanks to Bordeaux for trying its best to make it happen. Although the conditions are difficult, although we don’t know if there will be a market, I think all the clients also told me, we just want to move on to start making business – we just don’t want to keep talking about the coronavirus and we need to move onto the next step. I think this en primeur campaign is a good opportunity to create a dynamic, and we’ll see how it goes but I think it’s an opportunity.”
The 2019 en primeur market has officially started. Let’s see if buyers come, as the quality seems to be in the wines.
See below my top 20 en primeur wines tasted so far this year, listed by score and then alphabetically.
– James Suckling, CEO & editor
Read more:
BORDEAUX 2019: A POTENTIALLY DIFFICULT DEBUT
TOP 100 WINES OF FRANCE 2019
2016 BORDEAUX: A VINTAGE FOR TODAY’S BORDEAUX WINE LOVERS
GREAT VALUE WINES: 8 BORDEAUX 2016S UNDER $30
