Château Pichon Longueville Baron, 2ème Cru Classé, Pauillac, 2025
This is a really impressive Pichon Longueville. Often a bit underwhelming at en primeur tastings, it tends to flourish during élevage and surprise us from bottle. Christian Seely's magnificent 2025 starts at a very high peak offering a modern, polished expression of this fabulous terroir. Plum and cassis mix with flowers, sandalwood, cigar tobacco and rosehip. There's a really attractive, juicy energy to the fruit, high-toned and aromatic with a great definition and weight. A finely-wrought claret that brims with joyous fruit and finishes with powdery, chalky tannins packed with cherry stone and saline notes. Christian explained they had a "light hand on extractions"; it feels like they've expressed the vintage conditions and their terroir perfectly. A Baron with excellent precision and lift.
critic reviews
The 2025 Pichon Baron was picked over 16 days between September 8 and 24 at just 24 hl/ha, matured in 70% new oak. Like the Les Griffons, it has a subtle estuarine/sea spray element that intertwines with the mélange of red and black fruit. The Merlot is actually more expressive than recent vintages. The palate is medium-bodied, with grainy tannins, lovely crispness and elegance, gaining depth as it moves into its final third. Slightly chalky tannins (a leitmotif of the vintage, especially in Pauillac), gentle grip, with an almost mellow finish, suggest that it might be earlier drinking than the 2019 or 2022. Superb.
Restrained power, elegant fine grained tannins, gentle extraction at 26C, rosebuds evident. This has clear Pauillac character, coupled with the finesse and drinkability of the vintage. Again the anis and slate that I have seen in a number of the best wines this year. Very impressive. 70% new oak. 3.72 pH, 24hl/ha, 2nd year in a row with such low yields.
A brilliant achievement, the 2025 Pichon-Longueville Baron, a blend of 84% Cabernet Sauvignon and 15% Merlot (70% new oak), features a notably high proportion of Cabernet Sauvignon for a warm vintage, exceeding that of 2020 and 2022. It reveals a refined bouquet of dark wild berries, cassis, spice, lead pencil and licorice. Medium- to full-bodied, dense and concentrated, it’s built around a fleshy, finely structured core of fruit with a distinctly Cabernet-driven profile, combining freshness and tension with notable depth. It should age gracefully over the next two to three decades.