2018 Château Pichon Longueville Comtesse Lalande Pauillac

The Grand Vin represents 50% of the harvest this year. The Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande 2018 is made of 71% Cabernet Sauvignon, 23% Merlot, 5% Cabernet Franc and 1% Petit Verdot with 14% alcohol. The wine is very deep purple-black in colour. The wine shows notes of crushed black cherries, warm blackberries, ripe blackcurrants and chocolate cake with nuances of violets, roses, incense with hints of new leather and iron ore. Full, concentrated and fully loaded with tightly wrapped black fruits and savoury layers, the palate shows a rock solid backbone of firm, super ripe, super fine grained tannins and soft background freshness, with a very long finish with a real display of mineral fireworks. We like to make a Grand Vin to the music every year. This year it was Bedrich Smetana: Má Vlast, JB1:112: II. Vltava (The Moldau).

“I just don’t know where it comes from,” Pichon Lalande’s technical director, Nicolas Glumineau, told me. “So much rain. Six months of almost daily rain! So there came a point where you had to ask: what kind of wine can we make in 2018? From mid-July, it changed abruptly. It was hot and dry; such a contrast was very unusual. So, what kind of wine were we going to make? We wanted everything to ripen perfectly. Every day we saw the shape of the berries changing in the run-up to the harvest, shrinking, and we wanted to make something pure and fresh. We harvested in four weeks. I think 2018 is between 2009 and 2010. It reminds me of 1989. People ask me, what kind of wine do you want to make at Pichon? This is it.”

FACT : The wine is in our conditioned Wine Warehouse and if you come to pick up the wine you will often also receive a nice discount. You will see the possible discount immediately if you choose Pick up on the Checkout page. We are located almost next to the Rijksweg with plenty of parking. Click here for address.