2022 Château Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande, Pauillac, Bordeaux
Critics reviews
The 2022 Pichon-Longueville Comtesse de Lalande was picked from 6 to 27 September at 30hL/ha, the drought chipping away so that one-third was eventually lost. This has 13.65% alcohol and a pH of 3.80. There is 17.5% pressed wine, the highest ever. This has a subtle bouquet, not understated, but it unfurls in the glass (unlike others that explode.)
Blackberry and cedar, light touches of mint, a hint of dark chocolate. The palate is medium-bodied with a velvety texture with a lovely balanced, gentle but insistent grip, slightly granular as it fans out with black fruit, cedar and light graphite notes. This is a very suave Pichon-Lalande that will age with style.
Drink 2029 - 2065
Neal Martin, Vinous.com (May 2023)
The 2022 Pichon-Longueville Comtesse de Lalande is magnificent. In recent years, Estate Director Nicolas Glumineau has pushed Pichon Comtesse to the limit. Maybe even a bit too far. But the 2022 is in the end a super-classic wine that emphasizes mid-weight structure, aromatic presence and persistence more than size.
Sweet floral, savoury and mineral accents run through a core of ripe, racy red-toned fruit. All the elements are so well balanced. Tasted four times.
Drink 2032 - 2062
Antonio Galloni, Vinous.com (April 2023)
A blend of 78% Cabernet Sauvignon, 17% Merlot, and 5% Cabernet Franc, the 2022 Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande is deep garnet-purple in colour. After a little coaxing, aromas of blackcurrant jelly, juicy plums, and wild blueberries waltz out of the glass, followed by nuances of red roses, damp soil, tar, and liquorice.
The medium-bodied palate is tightly wound, with impressive tension created by mineral-laced, crunchy black fruit layers, framed by firm, grainy tannins and seamless freshness, finishing long and savoury. pH 3.8.
Lisa Perrotti-Brown MW, The Wine Independent (May 2023)
Exceptionally well controlled, delivering grip and tension alongside the creamy ripe blackberry, cassis and raspberry puree fruits, studded with cloves, cocoa bean, violet, iris, wet earth, heather, mandarin, orange zest, slate. Another exceptional vintage from a property that is delivering at the top of its game, this impresses without seeming to try too hard.
Precision winemaking also, with very low pump-overs, reduced by half from a decade ago, and no added sulphites until putting the wine into barrel. 3.65ph, 31h/h yield, with around 50% of production split between this and Reserve.
Drink 2032 - 2048
Jane Anson, JaneAnson.com (May 2023)
78% Cabernet Sauvignon, 17% Merlot, 5% Cabernet Franc. Cask sample. Gently fragrant, the Cabernet element to the fore. Juicy extract but firmness behind. Suave texture of tannin. A certain finesse but power as well. Freshness and length on the finish. A refined statement. 13.5%.
Drink 2032 - 2055
Jancis Robinson MW, JancisRobinson.com (May 2023)
The 2022 Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande is one wine where a comparison with this estate's magical 1982 appears reasonable. Wafting from the glass with deep aromas of cassis, plums, violets, rose petals, tobacco leaf and pencil shavings, it's full-bodied, supple and fleshy, with a layered, seamless core of fruit that largely conceals its chassis of powdery structuring tannin.
Concluding with a long, expansive and beautifully perfumed finish, it's a blend of 78% Cabernet Sauvignon, 17% Merlot and 5% Cabernet Franc that has the potential to equal or even surpass the 2019 and 2016 vintages at this address. It checks in at a very classical 13.6% alcohol and a high pH of 3.80.
William Kelley, Wine Advocate (April 2023)
I love the aromatics here with botanicals as well as currants, blackberries and oranges. Full-bodied with incredible tannins that build on the palate with finesse and focus. Featherlight but always there. Stealth in structure. Very vertical. Savory. Superb. 78% cabernet sauvignon, 17% merlot and 5% cabernet franc.
James Suckling, JamesSuckling.com (April 2023)
One of my favourite wines from 2022, utterly seductive from the first sip, this is a stunning effort that shows the power of Pauillac in 2022, delivered with elegance and class. Heavily scented on the nose, full of dark fruits, savoury notes of salty chocolate and floral scents.
Smooth and so appealing in the mouth, the texture stands out, deep and rich but soft and chalky; tannins have a subtle powderiness that spreads the mouth, cooling and refreshing and giving the minerality while the cool black and blue fruits linger in layers expanding vertically.
This is so refined and polished - it's serious, no doubt, not super fun, but it doesn’t need to be; it’s rich and sumptuous with sweet blue fruits balanced by high acidity that keeps the focus and energy. Bright, bold, well-worked, clean, crystalline and pure. Somehow delicate and punchy at the same time.
A mind-blowing wine that you just have to marvel at with intensity, brightness and vibrancy, building as it goes. A long, clean finish leaves you wanting more, salivating for that next sip. 3.8pH. A potential 100-point wine. 3.8pH. 50% grand vin. Tasted twice.
Drink 2030 - 2050
Georgina Hindle, Decanter.com (April 2023)
One of the gems from Pauillac is unquestionably the 2022 Château Pichon-Longueville Comtesse De Lalande, which is 78% Cabernet Sauvignon, 17% Merlot, and 5% Cabernet Franc. A hypothetical blend of the 2019 and 2020, it's a full-bodied, concentrated, opulent Comtesse offering beautiful blue fruits, some chocolate, leafy herbs, undeniable minerality, ripe, velvety tannins, and an excellent finish.
Despite the higher Cabernet Sauvignon component, this stays silky, expansive, and incredibly sexy. It will be drinkable with just 4-5 years of bottle age but should have a lengthy drink window—hats off to director Nicolas Glumineau for another legendary wine from this château.
Jeb Dunnuck, JebDunnuck.com (May 2023)
About this WINE
Château Pichon Comtesse
Château Pichon Comtesse is an estate in Pauillac on the Left Bank of Bordeaux. The estate was ranked a Second Growth in Bordeaux’s 1855 classification, and belongs to an unofficial group referred to as “Super Seconds”.
It is located in the southern part of the Pauillac appellation, just next to Château Latour and a short distance from the border with St Julien. The attractive château building here is visible from the D2 road as you approach Pauillac from the south, on the opposite side of the street from Château Pichon Baron. The two neighbours were once part of one larger estate, which was divided in two in 1850. From 1978 until the mid-2000s, Pichon Comtesse was managed by Madame May-Eliane de Lencquesaing, one of the most prominent women in Bordeaux history.
Today, the estate belongs to the Rouzaud family, owners of Champagne Louis Roederer. The estate, which currently has 80 hectares of vines, is managed by talented winemaker Nicolas Glumineau. Nicolas and his team also manage Château de Pez, a sibling estate further north in St Estèphe.
France
Despite their own complacency, occasional arrogance and impressive challenges from all-comers, France is still far and away the finest wine-producing nation in the world and its famous regions – Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne, Loire, Rhône, Alsace and increasingly Languedoc Roussillon – read like a who’s who of all you could want from a wine. Full-bodied, light-bodied, still or fizzy, dry or sweet, simple or intellectual, weird and wonderful, for drinking now or for laying down, France’s infinitesimal variety of wines is one of its great attributes. And that’s without even mentioning Cognac and Armagnac.
France’s grape varieties are grown, and its wines emulated, throughout the world. It also brandishes with relish its trump card, the untranslatable terroir that shapes a wine’s character beyond the range of human knowledge and intervention. It is this terroir - a combination of soil and microclimate - that makes Vosne-Romanée taste different to Nuits-St Georges, Ch. Langoa Barton different to Ch. Léoville Barton.
France is a nation with over 2,000 years of winemaking, where the finest grapes and parcels of land have been selected through centuries of trial and error rather than market research. Its subtleties are never-ending and endlessly fascinating. Vintage variation is as great here as anywhere – rain, hail, frost and, occasionally, burning heat can ruin a vintage. Yet all this creates interest, giving the wines personality, and generating great excitement when everything does come together.
However, this is not to say that French wine is perfect. Its overall quality remains inconsistent and its intricate system of classification and Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée (AOC) based on geography as opposed to quality is clearly flawed, sometimes serving as a hindrance to experimentation and improvement.
Nevertheless, the future is bright for France: quality is better than ever before – driven by a young, well-travelled and ambitious generation of winemakers – while each year reveals new and exciting wines from this grand old dame.
Cabernet Sauvignon Blend
Cabernet Sauvignon lends itself particularly well in blends with Merlot. This is actually the archetypal Bordeaux blend, though in different proportions in the sub-regions and sometimes topped up with Cabernet Franc, Malbec, and Petit Verdot.
In the Médoc and Graves the percentage of Cabernet Sauvignon in the blend can range from 95% (Mouton-Rothschild) to as low as 40%. It is particularly suited to the dry, warm, free- draining, gravel-rich soils and is responsible for the redolent cassis characteristics as well as the depth of colour, tannic structure and pronounced acidity of Médoc wines. However 100% Cabernet Sauvignon wines can be slightly hollow-tasting in the middle palate and Merlot with its generous, fleshy fruit flavours acts as a perfect foil by filling in this cavity.
In St-Emilion and Pomerol, the blends are Merlot dominated as Cabernet Sauvignon can struggle to ripen there - when it is included, it adds structure and body to the wine. Sassicaia is the most famous Bordeaux blend in Italy and has spawned many imitations, whereby the blend is now firmly established in the New World and particularly in California and Australia.
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Description
Nicolas Glumineau genuinely doesn’t know where the freshness came from. Before the vintage, he expected something Napa-style; the result is far from it. The bouquet is intriguing, profound and smoky, with deep, dark notes of sour cherry.
The palate is dextrous, with red, blue and black fruit notes complemented by juniper, sage and bracken, and an earthy note and wet stone. This is complex, with a sense of restraint, density and finesse.
It was a real pleasure to taste with Nicolas with a smile on his face again after last year’s tiny, mildew-affected crop.
Cabernet Sauvignon 78%; Merlot 17%; Cabernet Franc 5%
Drink 2030 - 2060
Score: 18/20
Berry Bros. & Rudd (June 2023)
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