2018 Pichon Comtese Reserve Pauillac

2018 Pichon Comtese Reserve Pauillac

Being the second wine of Pichon Lalande, it’s a really respectable production coming from this second growth vineyard. I have never regretted buying Reserve de la Comtesse, as the quality is always very promising, not to mention coming from a ultra-great Bordeaux vintage like 2018, one shall have no hesitation to grab it. I split my tasting session into two sessions, one which is right out of the bottle, while the other to have sufficient decanting time of 3 hours. Straight from the bottle, the bouquet reminded me a lot of forest floor and pencil lead shaving, a promising start. The palate is tight and shut, with some unresolved tannins and a bit of fine particles lurking around (decanting will resolve this). Fruits were powerful, felt like drinking from a solid classified growth, this alone would have testified my view that I will buy a great vintage of this second wine, which will beat any solid Bordeaux labels coming from a weak vintage. Take my challenge, open a bottle of Pichon Lalande 2017 and compare it to this one, you’ll be persuaded this is better quality. At this point, I rated it 9.25 stars. Now the second part, after decanting it for 3 hours. I only have an exclamation; Wow, wow, wow! The softness and the feminine character just blew my palate completely beyond my expectation! Not stopping at just the stunning characters, the finishing was long! I repeat again, you want to enjoy this wine, you absolutely have to decant it for 3 hours to see the stunning palate teasing. This wine can easily age for 30 years and still enjoyable. Mark my words, fast forward to 2048, you will read my tasting notes with a big smile on your face if you listen to me and buy this wine!