Domaine Ponsot

Domaine Ponsot is a family-owned wine producer in Burgundy. It is known for its red and white wines made from Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, but is also well-known for the Morey-Saint-Denis Premier Cru Clos des Monts Luisants, the only 100-percent Aligoté premier cru wine in Burgundy.

The first Ponsot on the scene was William, originally from St Romain but on returning from the Franco-Prussian war he settled in Morey St Denis in 1872 and bought vineyard land including the Clos des Monts Luisants. He was succeeded in 1920 by his cousin and godson, Hippolyte Ponsot, who was joined by his son Jean-Marie in 1942. Jean-Marie, long-time mayor of Morey, ran the business from 1958 until the early 1980s when his son Laurent, currently the man in charge, took over. Laurent Ponsot takes a very individual approach. He uses no insecticide or pesticide but does not call himself organic. He pays attention to the moon and the stars, and the rhythm of plant life, but would not wish to be described as biodynamic. When the grapes are, eventually, picked, they received a faint dusting of sulphur but no more is used either during vinification or maturation, or indeed at bottling, except in the case of a specific problem.

Unlike most Burgundy houses, there is no sorting table, because any defective bunches, or parts of bunches, have already been removed in the vineyards, before picking. The healthy grapes are destalked, for the most part, and allowed to ferment whenever they wish and for as long as they wish., with punching down or pumping over being used as Laurent sees fit in a given year. Excesses of temperature are controlled but otherwise the grapes are left to their own devices, before the juice is sent to barrel: not new wood, not even young wood, but barrels which are 10 or more years old. The wines may or may not be racked before bottling, assuming the moon is suitable, at some point in the spring or summer of the second year after the vintage.

The domaine gained notoriety when it was embroiled in the widespread wine fraud of counterfeiter Rudy Kurniawan. In 2008, owner Laurent Ponsot was sent an auction list that included some old vintages of Ponsot wines. Some of these were wines that had never been produced, and suspecting counterfeit, asked that these wines were withdrawn from the auction. Since then, Ponsot has looked into various counterfeiting measures, and in 2009, the bottles were fingerprinted with unique bubble codes that were impossible to reproduce.