Château Pontet-Canet

Château Pontet-Canet rewrote what a classed growth could be. Facing Mouton Rothschild across the Pauillac plateau, the Tesseron family's estate became the first classified growth to farm its entire vineyard biodynamically — certified in 2010, with horses working the rows and part of each vintage aged in concrete amphorae made from the property's own soils. The gamble produced some of the appellation's most vivid modern wines, including back-to-back perfect scores in 2009 and 2010, and turned a once-sleepy Fifth Growth into one of Bordeaux's most closely watched estates. The wine is pure Pauillac energy: cassis, violets and a fine mineral hum.