1978 Pichon Lalande Pauillac

1978 Pichon Lalande Pauillac

I cannot resist Pichon Lalande, one of my all time favorite. However, I must confess even though 1978 was a Pauillac vintage, Pichon Lalande didn’t sing as well as I thought. I suspect the merlot was raining on the parade. Superb bouquet of floral and elegant smoke. Coming from a magnum, palette was smooth and mellow, however, it lacked the X factor of those killer first growth like Lafite and Latour from 1978 which are all predominant with Cabernet Sauvignon grapes.

11 Feb 2016
LEFT BANK MERLOT
Pichon Lalande was perhaps one of the rare labels in left bank Bordeaux to use a lot of Merlot grape, another would be Palmer, perhaps some Margaux labels too.
Served blind. This had loads of the rounded character that was a definitive high Merlot percentage wine, yet the nose was aged leathery Pauillac character. So that helped me narrow down the choices to only one answer. I was not confident enough about the vintage, guessing all over the place from 70s to 83. Was pleased 78 did well.