1990 - Pichon Baron, Pauillac

The 1990 Pichon-Longueville Baron has always been one of my benchmark wines, one that never ceases to perform. Now at 27 years of age, it is clearly at its peak, and what a wondrous thing it is. Now showing some bricking on the rim, the bouquet is utterly sublime, with red berries, cedar, touches of graphite, crushed rose petals and incense. You just want to become enveloped by these aromas. The palate is perfectly balanced, perhaps not as structured as it once showed since the tannins have mellowed, but what you get is a Pauillac relishing its secondary phase, which is almost Burgundy-like in terms of mouthfeel. Suffused with tension, it gains weight in the mouth toward the slightly tart finish. It is a Pichon Baron that only knows how to give sophisticated drinking pleasure. I once wrote that Pichon Baron is better than many 1990 First Growth, and that is a statement I have no reason to change. Tasted April 2017.

Beautifully rich, enticing, soft tannins, a lovely old Paullac that you can sink into. Love this wine, shows plenty of structure but zero hard edges. The fruits are mellow at this point, fig, wild strawberry, leather and undergrowth. A huge yield by modern standards of 70hl/h, and at the time at least 70% would have gone into the 1st wine (but Pichon Baron was smaller at the time, and the vast majority of this wine would have come from the same deep gravel terrace that the 1st wine comes from today).