Château Pichon Comtesse de Lalande, 2ème Cru Classé, Pauillac, 2021
We weren't allowed to have a private audience with Nicolas Glumineau due to the chateau's commitments hosting the UGC tasting. It may be because they don't have enough wine to let us taste twice! Paltry yields of just 15 hectolitres per hectare will make this in short supply. We've said it before and we'll say it again, wines nearly always show better when tasted in isolation at the chateau, so Pichon Comtesse 2021 is likely to be much better than our assessment. Produced from an atypical blend of 88% Cabernet Sauvignon, 10% Cabernet Franc and 2% Merlot, this opens with a typically kaleidoscopic aromatic profile of violets, tobacco, pot pourri, sandalwood, and fine, gravelly cassis. The palate is very gentle and harmonious – elegant and supple with a creamy texture, it feels like this will be an early drinker. Clear and crisp with a voluptuous and generous core of perfumed fruit, fleshy and ripe. This captures the brightness and energy of the vintage with supporting, graceful tannins flecked with notes of graphite and cassis. Delightfully refined.
critic reviews
A blend of 88% Cabernet sauvignon, 10% Cabernet Franc, and 2% Merlot, the 2021 Pichon-Longueville Comtesse de Lalande has a deep garnet-purple color. It gallops out with profound notions of juicy blackberries, freshly crushed blackcurrants, and redcurrant preserves, leading to fragrant wafts of violets, aniseed, and sassafras, with a touch of wild sage. The light to medium-bodied palate is graceful and shimmery, with a lively line and firm, fine-grained tannins framing the energetic black fruits, finishing long with a tingly, minerally lift.
This delivers fragrant, understated, sculpted, classic Pauillac, with savoury cassis bud, liquorice, fennel, mint leaf, cigar box, cassis, rose petals and undergrowth. Fine but plentiful tannins, with tension and elegance, plenty of ageing ahead, although no need to wait as long as in vintages like 2020 or 2022. 15hl/h yield, 3.76ph. 60% new oak for ageing (up to 700% for first three months only). First year organic conversion.
Just as I found from barrel, the 2021 Pichon-Longueville Comtesse de Lalande is stubborn on the nose at first, opening with a few swirls of the glass to reveal blackberry, cassis and light juniper aromas. The oak here is beautifully integrated. The palate is classical in style, the Cabernet patently in the driving seat—as you would expect, given it constitutes 88% of the blend. I really admire the finish on this ’21, as it appears to have gained delineation, mineralité and a little more persistence on the finish. This is an impressive Pauillac, brimming with freshness and character. Whilst it might be predestined to be overshadowed by surrounding vintages, best not to ignore this gem.
The 2021 Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande wafts from the glass with aromas of blackberries and minty cassis mingled with notes of violet, lavender, pencil shavings and rose petals. Medium to full-bodied, velvety and polished, it's beautifully seamless and complete, with a fleshy core of fruit, ripe acids and sweet, powdery tannins that assert themselves on the gently structured finish. This will offer a broad drinking window. It's one of the vintage's real successes, but it also represents only one-quarter of a "normal" production.