(97 pts.)Ģ006 Château Pichon-Longueville Baron – France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Pauillac Fine bubbles, clean aromas of brioche, lemon and lime fruit, subtle notes of red apple and stone fruit, the flavors echo in your palate and the texture is smooth with a full bodied feel that caresses all the while impressing you with substance and corpulence leading to a long and tantalizing finish. Combines citrusy verve with a creamy mid palate. What a way to start a vertical of Chateau Pichon Baron! Marvelous bubbly. More important is to read the notes :-).Ģ000 Krug Champagne Vintage Brut – France, Champagne But because people like to have reference points, I go ahead and assign scores. Sometimes high scores reflect future potential rather than actual enjoyment – as with the 20s below. So how could one compare that with some of the wines below, which I “graded” 97 points? In some ways, point scores are a futile exercise. Just a couple of weeks ago, I had tried some of the best wines ever that I know, including a magnificent “100 point” Latour 1959. For me, point scores ultimately reflect subjective taste and perception and are meant to be a sign of enthusiasm – or deception – more than anything else. In any case, much of the team’s continuity over the last 30 years guarantees that the unique character of this wine is maintained.īefore we get to the tasting notes, a word on point scores. In 1987 the French insurance company AXA purchased the estate and appointed Jean-Michel Cazes of Château Lynch-Bages as administrator, but the estate has been run since 2000 by Christian Seely, whom I last saw in Florence for the 8th annual Master of Wine Symposium in May 2014. ![]() In 1850 the estate was divided into the two current châteaux, facing each other as one enters Pauillac along the D2 highway. including 2000, 2002, 20.įive years ago in New York City, I had co-organized a double vertical of both estates private individuals and wine lovers brought their own bottles and we compared the wines blind over several vintages and then-Pichon Comtesse wine director Thomas Do Chi Nam, who later joined the team at Chateau Margaux, took part.Īs most readers of these pages would know, both Château Pichons were once a single, larger estate, owned by Pierre de Rauzan. And a word of praise to the relatively weak 2007 vintage, which was charming and very aromatically pleasing for current enjoyment, even though it, too, has Pauillac power, as it should, with tannic structure.Īlthough I sought to do a double vertical with both Pichon Baron and Pichon Comtesse, it was great to see Jean-Rene again, as I had organised verticals with him in three German cities back in 2006, where we had tried several of the same vintages as here in Washington D.C. No false notes from any of the 13 vintages enjoyed by assembled merchants, sommeliers, wine bloggers and wine lovers who attended this tasting dinner on a cold January Martin Luther King Day in the nation’s capital. ![]() ![]() And yet, 19 were both marvelous, made from higher yields. Their investments in the vineyard and the vat room have borne fruit especially in vintages since 2000. Jean-Rene Matignon – who flew to Washington for this tasting dinner – has been at the helm since 1987 as technical director, when AXA Insurance bought the property. ![]() This was my sixth consecutive annual Bordeaux gala dinner in Washington D.C. The wines of Pichon Baron have been particularly excellent in recent memory since the 2000 vintage.
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