{"id":23804,"date":"2022-12-15T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-12-15T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/insidelaplace.rcassocies.com\/2022\/12\/15\/inside-la-place-the-globetrotter-and-biodynamy\/"},"modified":"2022-12-15T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2022-12-15T00:00:00","slug":"inside-la-place-the-globetrotter-and-biodynamy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/insidelaplace.rcassocies.com\/en\/2022\/12\/15\/inside-la-place-the-globetrotter-and-biodynamy\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside La Place – The Globetrotter and Biodynamy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mathieu Bessonnet\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Technical Director<\/p>\n

Working at the estate since 2020<\/p>\n

Met by Gerda at the Gerda<\/p>\n

Ch\u00e2teau Pontet-Canet<\/h2>\n

5\u00e8me Grand Cru Class\u00e9 en 1855<\/p>\n

Pauillac<\/p>\n

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The Inside with Justine Tesseron<\/a> was one of my first interviews, she is a dynamic young woman, with a real vision of Ch\u00e2teau Pontet-Canet and the wine world in general. I returned to this magnificent estate to talk with its technical director, Mathieu Bessonnet who joined the Ch\u00e2teau in May 2020. Mathieu has biodynamics in his soul, while keeping his pragmatic side. For him, “Pontet-Canet is a wine of a unique place, there is no miracle recipe, it is necessary to accompany the plant so that it finds its best natural environment”.<\/p>\n

Gerda: <\/strong>Could you present your background?<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Mathieu Bessonnet<\/strong>:\u00a0<\/span>I am from Bordeaux and I fell in love with wine thanks to a fascinating geography teacher. He had organized a wine tasting with different expressions of terroir. It was superb! I knew immediately that I wanted to work in this industry. It requires multiple skills such as observation, but also a high scientific level and knowledge of traditions. I studied wine engineering in Toulouse with internships in Morocco, but also in the Entre-deux-Mers region. It was in Australia that I discovered biodynamics. Back in Bordeaux, I worked at Ch\u00e2teau Bon Pasteur and Ch\u00e2teau de Pressac before leaving with my family in Armenia for 3 years. Then I joined Michel Chapoutier as director of the Alsace, Beaujolais, Provence, and Ribera del Duero entities in Portugal. I was also in charge of the Australian structure of Chapoutier, I regularly traveled to Australia to check on the estates. Afterwards, I came back to Bordeaux, because we must not forget that Bordeaux is very well placed on the world map! I worked for a while with Jean-Michel Comme. We get along very quickly. Jean-Michel has left, but Justine Tesseron, the team and I continue the work of biodynamics that he set up with the family.<\/p>\n

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Vines culture<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n

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Gerda<\/span>: In what state of mind do you approach climate change?\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Mathieu Bessonnet<\/strong><\/span>: I approach climate change today with less certainty than in March of this year. 2022 has humanly marked me. I’ve done a lot of traveling in hot countries like Australia, I didn’t think that Bordeaux could be so vulnerable. Fortunately, we have done a lot to soften the impact of the drought and the heat wave, but we must go further to make the vineyard even more resilient.<\/p>\n

We believe that the solutions lie in a set of parameters to be considered, such as: covering the soil with organic matter, the vines’ height, the change of rootstock and vines orientation. At Pontet-Canet, we are lucky to have very old vines. Also, a huge program on massal selection of our Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Merlot has been put in place in order to detect the best vines and measure the biodiversity of each vine. We are monitoring 300 vines, it is a long-term work of 5 to 10 years.<\/p>\n

Climate change is exciting and requires further experimentation and observation. We must approach the subject with great humility, there is no miracle recipe.<\/p>\n

G<\/span>: You have acquired a solid experience before arriving here, what do you find different in the vineyards of Pontet-Canet?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Mathieu Bessonnet<\/strong><\/span>: The vines of Pontet-Canet have incredible resistance. They give the wine a natural power. Extractions must be done with great precision, because it is easy to become powerful very quickly. We are attached to what the wine expresses: finesse and balance. This year, Merlot gave a surprising structure after only 2 days of fermentation. I am not used to seeing a grape that gives its power so quickly.<\/p>\n

G<\/span>: How do you quantify the living character of your soils?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Mathieu Bessonnet<\/strong><\/span>:\u00a0Good, even if we don’t have the same life in all the plots. We do everything to increase this life everywhere by breaking the monoculture and creating biodiversity. I can give you 3 examples of approaches that we have put in place:<\/span><\/p>\n