UK Wine Pages Pichon Baron offline

Alba Restaurant, London
Tasted Friday, May 15, 2009 by Rupert with 921 views

Introduction

Pichon Baron has always struck me as having a very distinctive character, opulent, meaty and with a smoky coffee character to the fruit. These characteristics didn't come across this evening as obviously as I expected, though they were still there. Something I hadn't noticed before was the almost complete absence of cedar and blackcurrants.

The overall quality was very high, particularly the trio from '88, '89 and '90 where on the night I marginally preferred the '88, although all three are crackingly good. The '04 is stunning and I think the '00 will be. The '62 and '66 were excellent, way better than their reputations would suggest. I liked the '70 too, but seemed to be alone in this. The '53 didn't get much attention, but this was a lovely wine. And there were a lot of excellent second tier wines too - the '02, '01 and '98 all serious, substantial, harmonious wines.

Flight 1 (1 Note)

Flight 2 (5 Notes)

Flight 3 (4 Notes)

Flight 4 (5 Notes)

Flight 5 (3 Notes)

The following three wines were served blind. The first was clearly richer than the first, and the third started off distinctly odd. Vintage prejudice led me to assume that the third wine was the '94 and that the richer of the other two must be the '96. So 0/3 for me. But even before the wines were revealed, the third wine was pulling itself together and it ended up my favourite of these three.

Flight 6 (5 Notes)

Flight 7 (3 Notes)

Closing

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