The 2003 Pontet Canet has been uncorked and decanted….

[JimHow]

…along with the first cucumber from the garden.

Okay, it's time to take a close hard long look at this puppy.
Uncorked and decanted in the Houndsong decanter.

[Nicklasss]

Looking forward your description.

I predict you'll love it!

Nic

[JimHow]

I'm about to make a bold statement about Pontet Canet….

[Nicklasss]

Yes? What statement?

Nic

[Nicklasss]

Since 1994, Pontet Canet is the best 5th growth, taking the pole position to Lynch Bages?

Nic

[JimHow]

So… The 2003 Pontet Canet is clearly a profound wine. It is really in a good place right now. It has come out of a several-year period of awkwardness. It is a 95-96 point wine. But…. That's not my bold statement about Pontet Canet….

[jckba]

That it supplants Lynch Bages as the poor mans Mouton?

[JimHow]

Here is my bold statement about Pontet Canet….

Pontet Canet <drum roll> is best consumed when it is young.

I know everyone thinks Pontet Canet is this big, tannic, classically-styled Pauillac, in the Mouton Rothchild/Pichon Baron mold.
Pontet Canet is at its best in the two or three years after it hits the shelf.
It is during that timeframe that its highly ripe, structured fruit, combined with the great winemaking of Alfred Tesseron, come to the fore.
Have we ever seen a "profound" aged Pontet Canet?
I say the answer is no.
My best Pontet Canet experiences have come when this wine is very young. Just off the shelves.
It has tar and bold black fruit and Pauillac tannins and structure in gobs and gobs.
We saw that with the 1996 and other vintages from the mid-nineties.
And I think we are seeing it with the Pontet Canets of the 2000s.
This 2003 was a fruity, beastly, hot, in-your-face Pauillac.
It was Pauillac on steroids.
Now it has "resolved," it has become more tame.
It is still a 95 point wine.
But I enjoyed it more -- as I do with most of my Pontet Canets -- when it was first released.

[AlexR]

Jim,

The most intensive tasting of Pontet Canet I've ever had was with you at the château.

I'm not sure if I agree with you 100%, but I sure as heck am glad that I am not the only one promoting drinking wines when they are on the Young side.

Let's not forget that, even so, 2003 is twelve years old.
Only a tiny percentage of the world's wine is drunk at that age or older.

It will be interesting to see how more recent vintages of P.C. develop.
The château was officially biodynamic starting with the 2005 vintage, which means that the one or two preceeding ones (i.e. the 2003) were undoubtedly in the same category.
So, I don't think there has been a sea change there.

I have a bottle of 2003 Pontet Canet, just one, but I'll be fascinated to open it up one of these days.

All the
Alex R.

PS - The summer here so far has been excellent, and no risk of heat wave as in 2003, even if there have been some pretty hot days

[DavidG]

Jim, if you're right, I've got a lot of Pontet Canet wasting space in my cellar.

[JimHow]

I'm telling you, Pontet Canet is not a wine that gets substantially better with age.
The 1996 is nice now but it was a more profound wine when we first started BWE back in 2000.

[AlexR]

Had the 1996 Grand Puy Lacoste in magnum on Wednesday.
Fine to drink now.

David: please share what vintages you have in your cellar, and maybe pop one older one soon in the interest of science...

Alex r.

[DavidG]

Alex, I became a Pontet Canet fan because of Jim. I've got 2000, 2003, 2005 and 2009 in the cellar. At 15 years of age, the 2000 is where I would usually start drinking a classed growth Bordeaux. I have yet to try one other than on release. Maybe this weekend...

Jim, you are a bigger fan of Bordeaux at a young age than I am, so I have to take that into account. If I start opening them now, I'm sure I'll find a very good young Bordeaux, but that's not what I was going for when I bought them. If they don't develop the complexity I so value as they age, they will be a bit of a disappointment. But that's the risk in aging wine.

[JimHow]

I think Pontet Canet may be an exception because, when we are talking about Pontet Canet, we are usually thinking since 1994, when Alfred Tesseron took over. So those oldest Tesseron era wines would now be in that 15-20 year range. For my taste, I'm not finding that those mid-nineties Pontet Canets have aged the same way that other Pauillacs, say, Pichon Baron, Pichon Lalande, Mouton, Lynch, or even the few quality GPLs from that era, have aged. Maybe these new millennium PCs will be different, but I can't say this 2003 PC has improved from when it was BWE wine of the year back in 2008 or whatever year it was. Nor do I see it getting much better from where it is now. Having said all that, it's a damn nice wine…. Just not better than when it was younger.

[Jeff Leve]

Jim... I would not look at the ageabity of Pontet Canet based on 1996 or 2003. 2003 I think will age much better than you give it credit for. I found it charming to drink today but still young. 1996 was only the second vintage for Tesseron and at the time, they were not managing the vineyards in same manner as they are today, nor are they making the wines in the same manner. Frankly, the pre 2003 vintages are really not that exciting. They are rustic and lack the level of quality, concentration and ripeness found in the wines today. You need to look at the wines from 2005 forward, as 2005 was the first vintage where they really began getting things right at the estate. Subsequent vinages are even better with greater aging potential.

Putting it in perspective, that is lookng at the ability to age for Lynch Bages based on 1991 or 1992.

[JimHow]

We were certainly impressed with their 2009 and other more recent vintages at the estate in May.

[Comte Flaneur]

I found the the 2011 utterly captivating. I would love to buy some halves to sup on, but I bought a case of bottles as soon as I got back from Bordeaux.

I quite enjoyed the 2003 over the lunch, but I thought it was overshadowed by the 2000 and 2005. I have recently tried the 2001 and I was very impressed.

I have cases of 1996, 2003, 2009 and 2011. I am not planning on broaching any of these anytime soon. I am banking on the 1996 coming round in about five years.

I think most 1996s could do with a few more years. However the 1994 is heading south.

Its funny but if you take BWErs and put them on a spectrum of how they like them - Bordeaux strictly - it might look like this, left to right preferring young to old.

......Jim................Alex........Nic............Danny?................David G............Comte.... ....stefan.....WineDinners

Infanticide"...................................................................................................................Necrotic,necrophilia

[AlexR]

Ian,

I just love your spectrum )))))))

Alex

[dstgolf]

I don't think you are far off from my perspective in your order of those listed. I/We are split though as I enjoy the wines older than my wife does so I have to compromise. I think for Bordeaux David G is as close as it gets. Mind you I don't think Stefan is too far off either . I'd put Michael P just before WineDinners and Tim just to the left liking the older a tad more than Stefan.

[JimHow]

Well done, Ian, I think we need to expand it.
With the basic skeleton that Ian has outlined, where does everyone feel he/she falls?

[sdr]

I guess I am just to the left of Francois. I don't even have any twenty-first century Bordeaux. The ones from the eighties (1980s, not 1880s) are just fine for me right now. And there are plenty from the seventies, sixties, fifties . . . that I like too. If I want young wine, I'll drink California or Spanish.

Stuart

[DavidG]

I think you've got me in the right spot, Ian, and Danny's additions seem spot on.

I will say I like to drink them older than I tend to have them in the cellar. Mostly because I'm too chicken to roll the dice on older bottles at auction, so the oldest stuff I've got is from the early eighties. If I could magically acquire sound Bordeaux of any age, I'd probably put myself between Comte and stefan. I'd guess Tom is also probably between Comte and stefan.

[stefan]

Like David, I would drink more older Bordeaux if I had more. My tolerance for very young Bordeaux, like Jim loves, is quite low. 15 year old Bordeaux from a good vintage is fine if I am eating something heavy, but these days I eat little red meat. Older Claret pairs better with what I eat. I guess I am properly placed after François, Stuart, and MichaelP; close to Ian, Tom, and David. Tim probably fits between me and MichaelP or at least is moving to the right.

[Tom In DC]

Looking at the recent topics, I'd say this is P2KBWE - Post 2000 Bordeaux Wine Enthusiasts! We have a cold cellar to take care of the old soldiers., so take all of this with a grain of salt.

I almost always love our cellar orphans - 1983 Calera Pinot, 1982 Matanzas Creek Merlot, 1981 Meyney, 1976 Certan de May, the list of presumably OTH wines I've been delighted by goes on and on.

So I'd put myself perhaps a bit farther along the spectrum towards François than listed above, but I think the gap between any of us and François is both wide and deep.

[DavidG]

I drank the 2000 Pontet Canet tonight. Great balance, beginning complexity, nice mix of fruit and greens and forest floor, xcellent wine that's drinking really well now but I'd destined for even better days ahead as it develops more complexity.

[robertgoulet]

I will respectfully disagree with Jim

Drank the '95 approx. 8 mos. back
....it blew my socks off

This wine would have never tasted like this young....great secondary and tertiary notes that u can not find in a young wine.