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Château Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande 2023
Bordeaux Primeur | 2nd Cru Classé, Pauillac AC
Delivery in 2026
- France Bordeaux
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Cabernet Sauvignon
Merlot
Cabernet Franc - 5 - 25 years
- 13.00% vol.
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99 100James Suckling
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99 100Yves Beck
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98 100Robert ParkerThe 2023 Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande is a brilliant wine that will be worth a special effort to track down. Unwinding in the glass with aromas of wild berries and cassis mingled with licorice, lilac, iris root, violet, burning embers and pencil shavings, it's medium to full-bodied, seamless and complete, with a deep, layered core of cool fruit that largely conceals it's ultra-refined structuring tannins. At a very measured 13% alcohol and 3.67 pH, it unites all Pichon Comtesse's sensuality with unimpeachable Pauillac classicism. The 2023 is a blend of 80% Cabernet Sauvignon, 17% Merlot and 3% Cabernet Franc. Since joining Pichon Lalande just after the 2012 harvest, Nicolas Glumineau has made a number of changes. In the vineyards, Cabernet Sauvignon is increasingly displacing Merlot, and the soils are worked less frequently. Cover crops are employed, canopy management has evolved, with both fruiting canes now trained in the same direction—Glumineau would like to trial pruning "Guyot simple" if Pauillac's cahier de charges (appellation rules) permitted it—and 27 hectares of the estate's 102 are being farmed organically. A new, highly functional winery and cellar equips him with stainless steel tronconic tanks adapted to parcel-by-parcel vinification. Cooperage choices, too, have been refined (some 65% new oak is the order of the day), and the duration of élevage has been extended to 18-19 months in barrel before racking to tank before bottling. The result? Even as Cabernet Sauvignon occupies a more and more important place in the blend, Pichon Lalande has never been more seamless and sensual, exhibiting a rare degree of structural refinement combined with remarkable complexity and depth of flavor.
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98 100Jane Anson
Intense dark purple, with black reflections.
Intense and dense aromas of blackberry, blackcurrant and graphite.
A deep vintage, with beautiful aromatic intensity, endowed with powerful tannins, which reveal themselves slowly, supported by an acidity which ensures liveliness. Elegant, powerful and persistent.
Mushroom ravioli with truffles, roast goose or squab, suckling lamb with Espelette pepper, leg of venison with chestnuts, brie stuffed with walnuts, chocolate cake served with thyme ice cream.
Serving temperature: 16 - 18°C
Château Pichon Longueville de Lalande is located between the Gironde and the Atlantic Ocean. The exceptional richness of the Pauillac appellation is the result of poor and sparse soil, made up of gravel on clay favoring excellent drainage. It is these Garonnaise gravels which offer such quality to the Médoc vineyards.
Thermoregulated fermentation in stainless steel vats, vatting for 18 to 24 days, aging in oak barrels, 80% of which is new wood.
Cork
Wooden box