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Wine Description
The Story
Our Grand Vin Château Pichon Baron, classified as a 2nd Grand Cru Classé in 1855, is made with grapes from the oldest vines on the estate’s historic plots.This quintessential Pauillac offers an intense and profound sensory experience of great complexity. Château Pichon Baron exhibits elegance, intensity and exceptional length on the palate. It is a wine that improves year after year and can age for over 40 years in the cellar.
The reputation of Pichon Baron until the 1960s was superior to that of Pichon Lalande across the road, it was also placed above Pichon Lalande in the Classification of 1855. But on the death of Jean Bouteillier in 1961 its reputation began to sink. His eldest son Bertrand was still young and inexperienced and there was a lack of money for necessary investments leading to a decline in quality of the wines during the 1960s and 1970s. During the 1980s there were signs of recovery but not at the same speed as with many other properties during this time and certainly nowhere near that of Pichon-Lalande that had prospered enormously under the care of May de Lencquesaing to become one of the first "Super-seconds".
Wine Information
Winter rain helped to replenish the water table satisfactorily. Consistent bud break took place in the second half of April.
Flowering started at the end of May. Thanks to stable weather conditions with very constant temperatures, fruit set accelerated in mid-June. Summer started with warm and sometimes scorchingly hot dry weather. Summer pruning began with leaf and shoot thinning in June and July in order to make the most of this favourable microclimate. The first significant water stress then helped the skins to thicken and led to early ripening of the grapes. In these ideal conditions, targeted thinning was carried out early in order to encourage the assimilation of compounds essential to ensuring perfect ripening.
During the last days of July, still dry and hot, the first grapes started to change colour. Stormy periods in August and September boosted ripening. The skins grew finer and flavours became more expressive. On the whole, maturity was very consistent. Thanks to firm, strong skins, phenolic maturity progressed without risk of over-ripening.