2023 Pichon Baron
Buying options
Tasting notes
This is a typically firm and muscular wine in 2023. The nose is spicy and intense with concentrated fruit. It’s powerful, rich, and a little stern in structure at this youthful stage, but with a tightly packed core and juiciness to balance it. This will need time, but has everything to go the distance. Aged in 70% new oak, with 13.2% alcohol and 3.7pH. Blend: 80% Cabernet Sauvignon, 20% Merlot
Critic scores
Average Score
James Suckling
William Kelley, Wine Advocate
More reviews and scores
A blend of 80% Cabernet Sauvignon and 20% Merlot aged 18 months in 70% new French oak, the 2023 Château Pichon-Longueville Baron is another classic wine from this impeccably run estate, which I suspect is making some of its greatest wines today. Ripe currants, spicy wood, graphite, and tobacco all emerge on the nose, and it’s medium to full-bodied, with a pure, graceful mouthfeel, plenty of tannins, and outstanding length. Reminding me of the 2008, and perhaps even the 2019, it’s a very classy, aristocratic style of Pichon Baron that stands out for its balance and length. Give bottles 4-5 years and enjoy them over the following 25+ years. There are roughly 12,600 cases produced. Drink 2030-2060.
The 2023 Pichon Baron is a gorgeous, statuesque beauty, just as it was en primeur . Soaring aromatic top notes meld into a core of dark-hued fruit, gravel and new leather. This builds beautifully with time in the glass, showing notable resonance that really explodes on the back end. More than anything else, I am impressed with the precision and vertical energy that have become such an integral part of the wines here in recent years.
The 2023 Pichon Baron has a perfumed bouquet with iris flower-infused black fruit, background scents of orange pith, cedar and blueberry. Very pure and beautifully defined. The palate is medium-bodied with very pliant tannins, crisp and quite linear, impressive mineralité with an almost understated finish if you compare it to the '22. Quintessential Pichon Baron and I would broach this before the '22.
About the producer
Pauillac’s Ch. Pichon Baron, formerly known as Ch. Pichon-Longueville Baron, is ranked as one of the 15 Second Growths from the 1855 Classification and is considered one of the "Super Seconds".