Chateau Pichon Longueville Baron, Pauillac

Every now and then you taste a wine that helps to recalibrate your palate… and the 2004 Chateau Pichon-Baron I tasted a week ago reminded me just how classic and complete good Bordeaux really is. Beautifully integrated with ripe, seamless fruit, fine, unobtrusive oak and wonderful length, this wine is still in its infancy and yet has marvelous complexity and depth already. Tannins were supple and harmonious and there was a delicate perfumed character that made the wine deliciously enticing. I shall stop now, as with a wine of this quality it is easy to keep teasing out aromas, flavours and sensations ad infinitum, but my overall impression was that, as when tasting good Burgundy, it makes you realize just how far New Zealand et al still have to go…
These days, the price of Second Growth Bordeaux puts it out of everyday drinking range for all but a lucky few but if you do really love wine, then it should be mandatory to taste and drink wines of this caliber on at least an annual basis just to remind yourself of what the rest strive towards.