Pontet Canet in Napa?

“This is the first vintage off this estate following the purchase of the old Robin Williams vineyard and house by Chateau Pontet-Canet proprietor Alfred Tesseron back in 2016…Now officially dubbed “Pym-Rae,” in respect for the original name given to the vineyard by Robin Williams (Pym and Rae are the middle names of two of Williams’s children).” Robert Parker Wine Advocate



“A blend of 76% Cabernet Sauvignon, 17% Merlot and 7% Cabernet Franc, the 2016 Pym-Rae displays a deep garnet-purple color and reveals wonderfully fragrant notes of candied violets, wilted roses, damp soil and black tea over a core of red and black currants, black cherries and warm blackberries plus touches of cigar box and camphor. Medium to full-bodied, the palate is evocatively singular, offering that rock-solid structure of mountain fruit, yet these are wonderfully ripe, silt-like tannins that beautifully support the elegant red and black fruit layers, finishing very long and very perfumed. Drink: 2020-2048.” Robert Parker Wine Advocate

$333 a bottle (sokolin)? LOL Hope it works out for them

Where are you seeing the price? I tried to look it up on Sokolin and didn’t find it.

Anybody know what did they did with these grapes when Williams still owned it?

email offer. You can have mine. :slight_smile:

Robert Craig Mount Veeder Cab, I believe.

You show great kindness, but I will gladly take instead roughly two bottles of the 2005 Pontet Canet or three of the 2014 or…

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BTW, do I want my tannins to be silt-like? Asking for a vigneron friend.

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Nope! Silt is a rock particle in which the grain size is smaller than sand but larger than clay.

When doing fieldwork, geologists have sometimes been known to put a small sample in their mouth. If they can feel the gritty particles; it is a siltstone, if not then it is a claystone (which may later become shale thru further lithification). They do this as it can be hard to tell the difference purely by visual methods.

So if I want my tannins to be gritty and slightly coarse (not really) then yes I want silty tannins.

I suppose maybe he meant silky tannins and this is just a typo? but then “silk-like tannins” does not make sense to me anyway.

Brodie

Damn you Rolland, that’s $8 more than my beloved Ovid!

:wink:

I presume “silt-like” means fine, as opposed to coarse. It’s possible that Lisa, like me, thought that silt was finer than sand, but nonetheless possessing some grit.

Robert Craig had the grapes for around 20 years


There is a Pym-Rae & Pontet Canet master class at Hi-Time tomorrow in Costa Mesa with Alfred Tesseron. Looks like they are pouring this as they have it listed on the class. $50 and limit of 20 people.

https://www.hitimewine.net/wine-bar

FYI, this is from Robert Craig (Elton Slone) a week or two ago

The Tesserons are releasing their first vintage of Pym Rae, Mount Veeder Cabernet in the coming months (from the vineyard we used as our Veeder source from 1993 through the 2015 vintage) at the breathtaking price of $500 per bottle. Bravo! We will see how it fares next to our Mount Veeder in the cellar, and the almighty brown bag, over the next two decades. Check back with me in the 2040 edition of “Greetings from Howell Mountain”. The 2017 vintage wines from Craig are all thrilling, complex, site expressive cellar-worthy beauties that continue to afford a bargain in the ever more expensive playground that is Napa.

I’ve had the last couple of vintages at Ponet Canet during the en primeur tastings.

It remiinds me of Anne Gros showing her Minervois wines at her domaine in Vosne Romanée.

Arguably not such a good idea.

The transition from Ponet Canet to Pym Rae was not altogether fortuitous.

Alex R.

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Can you explain to us Plebes what that means? Thanks.

He means both the Minervois wines and the Pym Rae suffer by the comparison.

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Maybe the point was to quiet those reviewers who are wont to describe Pontet Canet as Napa in Bordeaux.

As a guy whose buying tops out around Elysian/Maybach/2nd growths (i.e. mmmmaybe $200) I’m trying to figure out the $350 price tag. My first thought was that they are positioning their competitors/peers as Dominus and Opus One – but wow a lot of back vintages of those are less than $350.

Lesser known, but for a couple of years right before Tesseron took full control of their grapes (2014 and 2015), there was also a Pym-Rae bottling by a very small wine maker called Pilcrow, which was excellent (IMHO). Pilcrow now sources from Ghost Block.

Ironically I just got an offer for this in my inbox, it featured Robin Williams name prominently in the header, which might to some seem in poor taste.

Can’t imagine they’ll pull off the same beautiful balance they get from the Bordeaux wines. At $333 I’ll let you guys be the judge of that while I buy three 2008 pontets…

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