1996 Château Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande Pauillac Bordeaux France Wine Tasting Note

At probably full-maturity, this is a gorgeous Pauillac. rich, supple, and concentrated, you find a wealth of dark currants, tobacco leaf, cigar box, spice, blackberry, peppery herbs, and leather on the nose. The palate is even better with its silky textures, length, and soft, luscious, earthy, tobacco-tinted fruits that linger. Popped and poured, it showed great from the get-go.

4,804 Views   Tasted Dec 25, 2021

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Everything you could want from a mature Pichon Lalande or great Bordeaux is here. Splash decanted, which is all you need, this beauty offers flowers, spice, cigar box and roasted, dark red fruits. On the richly textured palate, the wine is generous, soft, silky, elegant and fresh, with a hint of spice and leafy nuances in the deep, red fruit-filled finish. This is at, or close to its peak. Unless you are a necrophiliac, it is time to start popping your corks on this beauty.

I added another Pt here, as this just keeps hitting all the sweet spots. Sensuous, silky and fresh, with layers of ripe, pure, elegant, polished fruits, the wine tastes, feels, smells and performs just great. This is a stunner now, and there is room for improvement too!

Consistently stunning, this is a beauty. The textures are pure silk, the fruits are ripe, sweet and complex, the tannins, sugar and freshness are in balance and the finish is sexy. Plus it is showing great today!

If you're looking to catch an elegant, text book Pauillac in the perfect place, pop a cork on this beauty if you have a bottle or two stashed away and be prepared for a beautiful nose of tobacco, forest floor, cassis, green olive tapenade, (but in a good way) and spicy cherries. Plush, polished and sensuous, the silky, fresh, sweet fruits and black cherry liqueur in the end notes feel great while they linger on your palate. Decanted 30 minutes before serving brought it right where it needed to be. Additional time in the glass did not add much.

This is the right time to be popping corks on this beauty. With a short decant, tobacco, cassis, forest floor and cedar chest notes were all over the place. The texture is silky, slinky and the finish, leaves you with flavor, freshness and silk. The wine was produced from a blend of 75% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Merlot, 5% Cabernet Franc, and 5% Petit Verdot.

1996 Pichon Lalande is one of those rare wines that has never shut down. It’s been delicious since it was bottled and it has improved with age. Rich, sensuous textures, complex aromatics and a fresh, pure, long, expansive finish are all found in this beautiful Pauillac. Drink it now, or hold it for another decade or two!

Truffles, cigar smoke, dark berries, cassis, cedar wood, spice, tapenade, anise and damp forest scents open to a suave, rich, full bodied, silky, fresh, polished, sensuous wine with multiple layers of ripe, black fruits. The long, clean, black cherry finish with sensations of velvety tannins remains in your mouth for close to 50 seconds. At 15 years of age, this is starting to its true character. It seems to get better with every tasting. Drink this delicious Bordeaux wine now and over the next 20 years.

A fragrance factory seems to have exploded in the glass when this Bordeaux is poured. Black fruit, olive tapenade, cedar, cassis, licorice, chocolate and spicy tobacco make this a wine difficult to stop smelling. But the intoxicating perfume are only a prelude to the joy your palate senses as the wine flows over your sense receptors. Dense, concentrated and rich with a seemingly endless array of ripe, black fruit fills your palate. The texture is pure velvety, opulence.

Already open and offering much of its future charms, this beautiful wine is filled with rich, ripe, sexy fruit and coats your palate with pleasure. It has aromatics and a finish that is a joy to feel on your palate. I hope and believe the 00 might be at the same level in a few years, but the 96 is stunning!