© Pontet Canet

Customers buy it because it's Pontet-Canet, not because it's Pauillac

Bordeaux fifth growth Pontet-Canet will have to sell the 2012 vintage of its second wine as Vin de France.

Les Hauts de Pontet-Canet, the second wine of Château Pontet-Canet, will not bear the prestigious AOC Pauillac label for the 2012 vintage after the wine was rejected by the official tasting panel. Instead its legal definition will be Vin de France.

When Alfred Tesseron, owner of Château Pontet-Canet learned about the decision, he told the regional newspaper Sud Ouest: "I do not understand. This has never happened in my 30 years of work here. Fortunately, my négociant customers have put their trust in me: almost none have cancelled their orders."

Hortense Bernard, general manager of Millésima's U.S. operation, told Wine Searcher: "This does not change anything. The wine has always been consistent and we believe in it. They [the customers] do not buy it because it is a Pauillac, they buy it because it is Pontet-Canet."

Customers who had purchased the second wine en primeur had done so believing it would be AOC Pauillac, as did the château itself. Once Millésima knew about the change they contacted all their customers to check they were still happy to proceed with the purchase and had no problems. "We knew it was no big deal," summed up Bernard.

In 2009 French AOC rules were tightened up and, among other checks, all wines go through an obligatory analysis and taste test shortly before release, which is conducted by an independent service not directly connected with the regional growers' association of each appellation.

Each wine is tasted by a jury consisting of a mix of local producers, négociants, brokers and enologists. If a wine is rejected, the reason usually given is that the wine is not considered to be entirely typical of its appellation, as defined in the appellation rules.

Organic and biodynamic producers across France, notably in the Loire and the Jura, frequently have their wines rejected by the AOC tasting panels, and some now choose to release their wines under Vin de France by choice, rather than going through the pain and expense of applying for AOC status.

Château Pontet-Canet adopted biodynamic principles in the vineyards in 2005. Earlier this year, Tesseron told Wine Searcher that, from 2012, they started to use amphorae in the winery and reduced the new oak component down to 50 percent, a level that is low for a Bordeaux property of this standing.

It depends on the appellation rules as to what a wine may be sold as, if rejected. A wine submitted as an AOC Pauillac, may not be relegated to AOC Bordeaux, so instead it is given only the simple Vin de France designation, which replaced Vin de Table in 2010.

The relegation is likely to have much more impact on sales within France, where the AOC label is more highly regarded and considered to guarantee an expression of terroir than in international markets, where the brand is more important. Nevertheless Bernard emphasizes that Les Hauts de Pontet-Canet is "a brand with terroir behind it."