Domaine Ponsot is located in Morey-Saint-Denis,
where the views over the Saone Plain, Jura and the Alps are breathtaking. The
winery produces world class Burgundy wines from 21 appellations – which includes
12 Grands Crus – and farms, according to Laurent Ponsot himself with “no rules”,
but also with no restrictions either. Laurent Ponsot considers biodynamic
farming a dream, something almost impossible to apply from a practical point of
view. He characterizes his work in the vineyards as ‘natural’, that is; no
spraying is involved and the use of synthesis is limited.
Laurent Ponsot was born in 1954
and is the only son out of four siblings to his father, Jean-Marie, a former mayor
of Morey-Saint-Denis and since taking over the winery has implemented the use
of no new oak, new technology applied to traditional winemaking practices and
is a pioneer for the anti-counterfeit movement – he himself identified the fake
wines being sold by Rudy Kurniawan and has since been working with the FBI to
stop the production of counterfeit wines around the world.
In town for a few days this week,
Laurent took the time to sit down with Wine Times and discuss his vineyard
beliefs and his passion for curbing the current plague of counterfeit wines
that are popping up all over the planet, none more so according to Laurent, than
here in Hong Kong by virtue of the number of auctions selling old wines these
days in the city.
WTHK: You said to me yesterday
that man is just one cog in the winemaking process and nature does most of the
work for us. Can you elaborate a little on that?
LP: “Well nature is the origin of
everything on the planet including man! We cannot think that man is at the
origin of things, especially natural things. Everyone who has studied oenology at
university wherever it is be it UC Davies or Montpellier, they think they make
wine….but there is no word in French for ‘winemaker’ and this is not by chance.
We are a part of nature and part of the chain of the winemaking process, and we
are just one part of the chain. I think of myself more like an orchestral
conductor. A conductor moves his arms when on the stage, but there is no sound
without the musicians. The musicians are like the vines, the weather, the wines
themselves, the geology and with all parts of the chain working together you
will make nice harmonious music. The same can be said for wine”.
WTHK: Why do you never use new
oak barrels to make your wines?
LP: “Well, it’s all about
history. We have 2000 years of history in Burgundy of vine growing and winemaking.
When the Romans came to Gaulle, they found the people using barrels to store
their drinks and they found this so clever as they were still using amphoras.
Naturally, the Romans started to use barrels and they found the wine would
breathe and age much better through the oak – much better than the amphora’s
for the aging process. Wines of Burgundy do not need extra oxygen and I have
done extensive tests to prove that Burgundy wines are better with a slower
aging process. New oak lets too much oxygen in and makes the wine age faster
giving it less time in the bottle, so we prefer to use at least five year old
barrels. Using new oak adds a flavour to the wine that is not natural and I
prefer that the wines taste more of the essence of the terroir. I don’t want to
make a beverage made from grapes and oak. New oak aged wines are like a sumo
wrestler, they are big, strong, superb and rounded in their youth, but they don’t
last long and die very early….there are no sumo wrestlers alive over the age of
forty; that tells you something of my analogy”.
WTHK: You are a big fan of
technology. You make wines in a traditional way using new technology yes?
LP: “Right. If you come down to
the winey you will see the oak vats which the youngest is 100 years old the
eldest is 200 years old, but they are in good working order! On top of the vats
you will see a lot of pipes, valves, wires and other things. We control the
temperature during the fermentation process with a computer. We have a thermometer
in the vat and every second there is a test done by the computer to check the
right temperature. If there is anything too warm or cold, the system will
rectify this. This system is very 21st century – the computer can
even call my cell phone if there is a problem and I can even do it from my
bedroom if I like. This is great! However, this is just one example of what new
technology we can apply to the traditional winemaking process”.
WTHK: You have done an amazing
job fighting against counterfeit wines. Can you explain a bit more on this and
do you think the war on counterfeiting is actually working?
LP: “Well, to explain to you in
five minutes will be tough but I’ll try! Since there are so many ‘new rich’
people all over the planet that have started to be interested in wine “smart
people” have decided to start “producing” wine for them. I started to sell wines
in Asia in 1982 and it was a really new phenomenon, people drank whisky and
cognac, but not wine. Since these people have been abroad to study in places
such as the UK or America they have brought some of the culture back here to
Asia. These people are knowledgeable, refined and clever and nowadays,
wine-smart and they want old bottles of Bordeaux, Burgundy etc. The fact is,
these wines don’t exist and demand is still high. So people manufacture these
wines for buyers. Since 1995 counterfeit wine production has been increasing
and increasing and, say 15 years ago a lot of people were faking wine – some sporadically
when they needed money, but some others made it on a big scale. This is the
case of Rudy Kurniawan who was arrested in Los Angeles last year. When I found
out four years ago in an auction in New York that 84 bottles of Ponsot from the
20’s to the 60’s were on sale I was sure that some were fake so I decided to
investigate. Out of the 84 bottles put to auction, only 1 was real from Domaine
Ponsot. I could not stand it so I decided the next day to start a crusade
against counterfeiting and I had no idea what I would find! Two years later I
have been working with the FBI and I have given them all my information I
accumulated and the trail went all the way back to Rudy Kurniawan. In the meantime,
other people are still active in counterfeiting and I have found a lot of
groups still doing it. There are still groups within Germany and Hong Kong
which is very active, also in the US and in France. We found one is Switzerland
more recently also. Because of all the auction houses taking advantage of no
tax here in Hong Kong, it is a place where, actually, you can find a lot of
fake bottles. Most of them are coming from Europe or the USA, but they are sold
here. The fakers are really smart these days and it’s tough to see if a bottle
is really real or not – they use a lot of tricks and I think I am becoming a
little bit of an expert in this field these days. Today, you cannot find wines
from the 70’s back to the 19th century which are real because everything
has been drunk. If I am really optimistic, maybe 20 per cent of bottles from
this era are real, but no more than that – of course I am talking about wines
from the top wineries”.
WTHK: Finally, do you personally
have a favourite wine?
LP: “No. What I like is diversity.
Why would I just like only one wine? The planet is small and everywhere
produces wines, so you have to taste them all. New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc is
not a top wine but it is good – so why avoid it? The best wine on the planet is
the wine in my glass when I am drinking it”!
The investigation into the counterfeiting
by Rudy Kurniawan is still ongoing and Mr. Ponsot hopes
that the case will
finish up soon and that all involved get the punishment they deserve. He does
not plan to go further into the other cases of counterfeiting as it’s
something, he says, that should be left to the authorities. Fake wines however,
continue to be the scourge of the wine business and old vintage wine should be
bought with caution or from respected negociants.
Domaine Ponsot wines are
available in Hong Kong from Altaya wines and more information can be found by
contacting them on info@altayawines.com
or you can check out their website www.altayawines.com
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