CHÂTEAU PICHON LALANDE

The 2015 Pichon Comtesse is a towering wine, as it has always been. Rich, sumptuous and totally hedonistic, the 2015 melds together intense fruit with structure. Far from an easygoing wine, the 2015 is going to need a number of years and will then drink well for several decades. Grilled herbs, smoke, new leather and licorice are some of the many notes that are layered into the dark-fleshed fruit for complexity. As good as the 2015 is today, it also has room to grow. Technical Director Nicolas Glumineau has done a tremendous job with the 2015s at Pichon Comtesse. The blend is 68% Cabernet Sauvignon, 29% Merlot, 2% Cabernet Franc and 1% Petit Verdot, aged 18 months in oak, 55% new. Drinking range: 2025 - 2055 Rating: 98 Antonio Galloni, www.vinous.com (Feb 2018)

Mid crimson. Heady and dense and so thick it almost tastes as though you could stand a spoon up in this wine!! Lots of fun. Not too sweet and masses of structure but maybe slightly less sophisticated than the other Pichon? Drinking range: 2025 - 2045 Rating: 17.5+ Jancis Robinson OBE MW - www.JancisRobinson.com (Nov 2017)

This is a delicious Pichon, showing the château’s classic femininity and poise. The Cabernet is particularly fine and aromatic, providing the core of the wine, and is complemented by the spice, perfume and plushness of the other varieties. Brilliant winemaking. Drinking range: 2022 - 2035 Rating: 96 Tim Atkin MW, www.timatkin.com (May 2016)

In the 2015 vintage this is a blend of 68% Cabernet Sauvignon, 29% Merlot, 2% Cabernet Franc and 1% Petit Verdot. The alcohol level is 13.6%, This has a very evocative nose, clearly showing a very confident style, brimming with notes of dark fruits, black plums, black cherries, overlaid with a fresh blackcurrant intensity too. It all feels very pure and open, and accessible. The palate is more reserved than the second wine, fresh, with a real middle of ripe tannins, rolling and velvety, with all those beautifully expressed black fruits wrapped around them. Real texture and confidence here, a wonderful combination of structure and fruit. Fresh and pure and bright. A fantastic wine, and one of the best vintages of Pichon-Lalande I have tasted in quite a few years. Tasted twice, although to be straight the sample presented at the château to which this note largely relates showed better than the sample I tasted at the UGC tasting. Rating: 17.5-18.5/20 Chris Kissack, www.thewinedoctor.com (Apr 2016)

Fragrance and depth on the nose but a sense of over-ripeness puts it out of step with the vintage at the moment – even with the Comtesse lift and freshness. But time will probably be on its side. Drinking range: 2023 - 2035 Rating: 92 Steven Spurrier (Apr 2016)

A dazzling, towering wine, the 2015 Pichon-Longueville Comtesse de Lalande has put on considerable weight in just the last few months. Today, the 2015 is vivid and intense, with a huge backbone of tannin and marvelous complexity. In 2015, the Cabernet Sauvignon is pushed higher as the Merlot was less consistent in its ripening. Graphite, charcoal, tobacco, crème de cassis and new leather are some of the signatures in what is shaping up to be a super-classic Pichon-Lalande. Simply put, the 2015 is one of the wines of the vintage. Rating: 96-98 Antonio Galloni, www.vinous.com (Apr 2016)

This has excellent energy, featuring voluptuous blackberry and black currant fruit lined with cassis bush, bay leaf, wet stone and iron notes, with sweet tobacco filling in the background. The finish is broad and long, with a nice graphite edge. This is Pauillac. Rating: 94—97 James Molesworth, The Wine Spectator (Apr 2016)

This is absolutely beautiful with super tannin quality that gives you the most silky texture. Precise. It goes for minutes. Full and concentrated yet all in balance. Rating: 96-97 James Suckling, www.jamessuckling.com (Mar 2016)