Chateau Pichon-Longueville au Baron de Pichon-Longueville, Pauillac, Bordeaux, France, 2018

Overview of the Wine
The Pichon Longueville estate goes back to 1688-1689. In 1850, Virginie de Pichon Longueville, Countess de Lalande, and her two sisters inherited three-fifths of the vineyard from their father. This took on the name of Chateau Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande. In 1978, May-Eliane de Lencquesaing, daughter of Edouard Miailhe, in turn inherited this beautiful property and devoted herself entirely to continuing the tradition of quality wine. 

Just two families have been responsible for maintaining this wine's superb reputation for three centuries. Bordering on Chateau Latour, Second Growth Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande is located in the southern part of Pauillac, near Saint-Julien. The unusual choice of grape varieties (there is a much higher percentage of Merlot than average) is a partial explanation for this wine's outstanding personality, marked by elegance, balance and finesse. Traditional methods and modern technology combine to make the most of the estate's prestigious soil. The international reputation of this "Super Second" Growth can be attributed to unfailing quality and dynamic owners.

Winemaker
Jean-René Matignon

Grape / Blend
78% Cabernet Sauvignon, 22% Merlot

Origin
Pauillac, Bordeaux, France

Winemaker's Tasting Notes
Château Pichon Baron 2018 reveals a dark garnet colour. The precise and delicate nose offers notes of fresh fruit, black berries and spices. The attack is mellow, generous, rounded and juicy, developing powerful, well-blended tannins. The body is structured with silky, racy tannins. The flavour is carried by the structure, which preserves the mid-palate. The finish is tasty, full, fleshy, and harmonious.

The richness is perfectly integrated and the style is highly characteristic, built to last through the decades, while retaining elegance and distinction.

100 Points - Wine Enthusiast
This great estate in southern Pauillac, facing the Latour vineyard, is at the top of its game. In this release, the tannins are as impressive and dense as the black fruits. Together they form a harmonious ensemble, richly structured, concentrated from the many old vines in the blend, and very ageworthy. *Cellar Selection*

97 Points - Decanter
Grilled cedar and attractive aromatics, with well-handled extraction giving confident but unmistakable oak impact. This is good-quality, showing gentle raspberry leaf aromatics on the opening, savoury cassis and bilberry, with pencil lead and crayon appearing along with the tannins as it stretches out through the palate. There was one week less of maceration than normal, so 21 days instead of 28, which will have helped control extractions.

97 Points - James Suckling
Aromas of blackcurrants, blueberries, ash and cedar with hints of conifer. Full-bodied, yet so tight and refined with polished, toned tannins that are creamy and compact with a silky texture. Energetic and driven.

97 Points - Jeb Dunnuck
A beautiful, majestic Pauillac that reminds me a little of the 2000, the 2018 Château Pichon-Longueville Baron checks in as 78% Cabernet Sauvignon and 22% Merlot that was brought up in 80% new French oak. It shows the estate's more pure Cabernet, focused, elegant style yet offers full-bodied richness and serious depth of fruit as well as awesome notes of crème de cassis, graphite, lead pencil shavings, tobacco, and wet stone-like minerality. With building tannins, a fresh, focused texture, and a great finish, it's not for those looking for instant gratification, and I suspect it will need a solid decade or more of cellaring, but it will evolve for 50 years or more. It's a profound 2018. 97+

ABSOLUTELY ONE OF THE BEST -- Ian Blackburn - TEETH - 97 Points 
On my recent visit to Bordeaux - this producer has risen above... the venue, the hospitality, the investment... the results.  This producer will pull way from others - and this wine is EVIDENCE of that.  The purity, the concentration - the punctuated Pauillac quality marks, minerality, lenght, colour, and balance... BLIK this MFers! 

Product size: 750ml