Pauillac power, finesse: Château Pichon Longueville Baron
Text and photos by Panos Kakaviatos
At their best, the wines of Pichon Baron combine power and elegance. Over three tastings in Germany
in February 2007, with the estate’s technical director Jean René Matignon – two of which with marketing
director Marie Louise Schÿler – I had also the great pleasure of seeing again great wine aficionados I
have come to know and admire, such as Nikolas Rechenberg and Martin Barz.
The first evening at the Nassauer Hof featured a dynamite dinner prepared with great care and
originality at this Michelin-rated restaurant Die Ente. As usual Jan Burman proved a more than capable
and very friendly sommelier. The food pairings here were particularly well thought, and the wines
showed very well in that regard. But we also had great food and company at the Grand Hyatt in Mainz
and the Sankt Moritz Weinstube in Berlin - a great restaurant for wine lovers.
Tasting notes
2004: I got cranberry and raspberry – very red berry – aromas showing off freshness on the nose. The
palate was “riper” tasting, some tasters made the comment “California” but I disagree. I think the wine
was just in an awkward phase, where the oak is somewhat dominant. Did not detect any overripe fruit
characteristics. Was not overwhelmed either: just a very good showing of a young wine from a good if
not great vintage. 90-91+
2002: This wine proved to be the most impressive outside the 2000 and perhaps the 1989, if one had
the “right” bottle! More elegant and refined than the 2004, also more mature and at a better stage, but it
was flower-like, prompting one observer to call this the Baron’s Comtesse wine … A feminine Baron, so
to speak. But this wine also showed power and depth, because beneath the flower like aromas, one
obtained the iron fist in the velvet glove (for lack of a better albeit oft used cliché). Perhaps not the
complexity one expects from a great vintage, but one is not expecting greatness from 2002, now is one?
Well, this one approaches greatness. 94
2001: Some tasters really raved about the 2001. A wine with interest: good aromatic notes, including
chocolate and plum like notes, perhaps coming from the Merlot. The palate has a tonic quality to it,
rather corpulent, with a good palate feel. Though more expressive on the nose than the 2000, for
example, it lacks the intensity of both the 2000 and the 2002, to me a superior vintage at Pichon Baron.
91+
2000: A very complex wine that is just beginning to show its colors. And what colors. A surprising
aromatic freshness that yields at first white peach and white spring flowers. Then follows a very pure
expression of cassis, so quintessential to the Cabernet Sauvignon grape – but as the French say “en
douce”. The wine is still a baby. But, like the 2002, the palate reveals a brooding layer of power, tannic,
but very ripe tannin. A very long wine – after spitting out a sample in the tasting room with sommelier Jan
Burhman of Die Ente, I went up to my hotel room to get a pen and I could still taste the wine’s intensity of
flavour when I arrived in my room about a minute later. Not least of its advantages is this wine’s
supreme smoothness. I felt as if on a jet flying over lovely clouds with not a hint of turbulence. 96
1998: Now we enter a more volatile flight: a propeller plane over stormy weather. This vintage is a caged
animal, a fauve as the French say, I like its chutzpah, reminding me somewhat of a 1994 Mouton I
tasted back in 2005. Also quite complex: some notes of graphite, then leather and animal musk.
Interestingly, 80 percent Cabernet! I was expecting more Merlot from this vintage, but it worked. Still,
some hard edges belie the vintage’s imperfect nature. Good but perhaps needs to be enjoyed sooner
than later. Would go very well with robust venison, for example. 92
1996: A refined Cabernet, this is the antitheses of the 1998 – both vintages contain 80 percent Cabernet
and yet they are so different. More in the direction of the 2000, but without the power from that vintage, or
from the 2002. A ripe vintage, with dark cherry and cassis aromas and flavours – this wine is still rather
young and is in a subtle stage in my opinion. I think it will improve as it enters its tertiary flavour stage. 93
1989: This proved to be somewhat disappointing in terms of bottle variation! I am not sure why, but
some bottles were lackluster, while others lived up to this vintage’s reputation. So for those bottles, I
found both elegance and power, with complex notes mingling pencil shavings, truffle, and floral
aspects. When from the right bottle, just lovely. 94
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