1989 - Pichon Baron, Pauillac

One of the wines of the vintage, the 1989 Pichon-Longueville Baron is drinking beautifully today. Bursting from the glass with aromas of ripe blackcurrants, plums, Cuban cigar, loamy soil, black truffles and burning embers, it's medium to full-bodied, rich and enveloping, with powdery tannins and a concentrated core of fruit. Fleshy and dramatic, with a sumptuous, low-acid profile and a long, expansive finish, to my palate this is the one 1989 Pauillac that, on a good day, can rival the extraordinary 1989 Lynch Bages. While I tend to think it's at its peak, every bottle I open from my cellar in Beaune seems to be better than the last.

The 1989 Pichon Baron is a wine that I have enjoyed many times, and it is just wonderful. Graphite and tobacco interlace on the intense, black-fruited nose that could only be born in Pauillac, old school in some ways and yet still brimming with vigour. The palate has fabulous balance, impressive weight and backbone, with gentle grip on the finish that never imposes too strongly. There is a sense of control and grandeur about this Pichon Baron that never ceases to amaze. Wonderful.

A hot dry vintage that at over 30 years old is really beginning to be sorted out into the great and the 'drink up' wines. This is one to look out for, welcoming aromatics of smoked earth, rosebud and liqorice root, great complexity of flavours, waves of tobacco and brambled blackberry and raspberry puree. Still plenty of fruit here, although tertiary and unfussy. Exotic spices also of cinammon and turmeric. Lovely - you can see why Jean Marie Matignon calls this his first great vintage, five years after he took over as technical director, and it just sings of Pauillac restrained power. Yields up at 55-60hl/h.