Chateau Pichon Comtesse de Lalande Pauillac Bordeaux Wine Tasting back to the 1941 Vintage

When asked if she was going to join Alcoholics Anonymous: “Certainly not. They want me to stop now.”

Dorthy Parker

And I’m not stopping any time soon either because now we have a comfortable place to drink our wines with our “Wine Drinking People” we will keep you busy every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night all year long at the Wine Watch Wine Bar.

 We have a lot of special tastings coming up but this one may be the best of 2023 with Chateau Pichon Lalnade Comtesse de Lalande making some of the greatest wines coming out of Bordeaux.  I have had a bottle of 1941 that is in perfect condition here for way too long.  That is why as soon as I received several older vintages of this great Chateau, I immediately put a date on the calendar to drink every vintage that we have in the store back to 1941.

The fee for this “Once in a Lifetime” tasting which includes dinner is $595 + tax, for reservations call 954-523-9463 or e-mail andy@winewatch.com.  Please let us know when you make your reservations if you have any dietary restrictions and chefs Toni and Dani will be happy to accommodate you.

Chateau Pichon Longueville Comtesse De Lalande
Bordeaux Tasting back to the 1941 Vintage
Friday, June 2nd
7:30pm

1941 Chateau Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande Pauillac, France
1966 Chateau Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande Pauillac, France
1978 Chateau Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande, Pauillac, France
1980 Chateau Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande, Pauillac, France
1982 Chateau Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande Pauillac, France
1983 Chateau Pichon Longueville Comtesse De Lalande Pauillac, France
1986 Chateau Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande Pauillac, France
1990 Chateau Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande Pauillac, France
1996 Chateau Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande Pauillac, France

Menu
Selection of Cheese and Charcuterie
Wild Mushroom Soup Garnished with Sherry Crema and Fresh Herbs
Beef Tenderloin Tartar with Parmesan Crisp
Crispy Duck confit with Currant Natural Sauce and Truffle Fries
Vanilla Bean Crème Brulee

 The fee for this tasting which includes dinner is $595 + tax, for reservations call 954-523-9463 or e-mail andy@winewatch.com.  Please let us know when you make your reservations if you have any food issues and chefs Toni and Dani will be happy to accommodate you.

A  bit about Chateau Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande:

The secret is out among lovers of great Bordeaux; Chateau Pichon Lalande in the commune of Pauillac in the Medoc is making wines as good as its illustrious neighbors: Chateau Lafite; Chateau Latour and Chateau Mouton-Rothschild.  All through the 1960's and 1970's, there was a groundswell of enthusiasm for the soft, beautiful wines of Pichon Lalande.  Although connoisseurs in England have always known that Pichon Lalande was making great wine at ludicrously low prices, it has been only in the past few vintages that Americans began to clamor for their share.  Throughout the latter part of the 1970’s and the entire decade of the 1980’s Lalande’s wines improved steadily, with the outstanding 1982 putting this chateau over the top with a (100) point score from the world’s premier authority on wine- Robert Parker Jr.

The recent phenomenal success of Pichon Lalande can be attributed to a lady named May de Lencquesaign, whose family has owned the estate since 1926.  During the 1960's and 1970's it was administered by her brother; in 1978 she assumed control as a result of a family quarrel.  When the family's holdings were split, Madame de Lencquesaign took control of Pichon Lalande and moved into the property.  She immediately launched a five-year, multi-million dollar capital improvements plan for the chateau.  The entire mansion was refurbished, a new underground chai was built for aging the wines, the most modern winemaking equipment was installed, and an ambitious replanting of the vineyards was begun.  Bordeaux's superstar consulting enologist, Emile Peynaud, was hired to assist the extremely talented cellarmaster Jean-Jacques Godin.  Peynaud has become the single most influential man in modern Bordeaux; he has consulted to and improved the wines of over 100 chateaux.  Some say they can easily detect Peynaud's influence in the change of winemaking styles.  Peynaud believes in wines of early accessibility and drinkability - wines that do not have to age in dark cellars for twenty years before they emerge from a grudging adolescence and become enjoyable to drink.  While some old-school thinking deplores this "Penaudization" of Bordeaux, we applaud it vigorously!  For a time the name of the chateau had been shortened so that it would not be confused with that of its less superior sister property, Pichon Longueville Baron.  Madame de Lencquesaing – dismayed at the abbreviated name given the estate by her brother - returned the wine to its original namesake: Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande.

Pichon Lalande is located in Pauillac, but about a third of its vineyard crosses over into the borders of St. Julien.  The estate's 150 acres of vineyards are planted to about 45% Cabernet, 35% Merlot, 12% Cabernet Franc and 8% Petit Verdot.  The fact that its southern exposure lies in St. Julien and that sometimes less than half of the wine can be Cabernet Sauvignon results in a fruitier, more feminine, more supple wine in youth - somewhat akin to Lafite as opposed to the other great Pauillacs like Mouton and Latour, which show more concentration due to the high percentage of Cabernet Sauvignon in the cepage.  The soil here is a graves dating from the Gunzien period.  At the top it is almost pure gravel but deeper down there is more clay.  Under this is a soil type called Molasses du Frondasias, a greenish sandstone of the Miocene age and, below that, limestone and marnes de Saint-Estephe (marnes is marl, a clay-limestone mixture).

It is interesting to note that Nazi soldiers occupied the chateau during the Second World War and Madame de Lencquesaign lived in nearby Margaux, where she helped Jews escape the Nazis.  After the war, she lived with her husband in the United States (Kansas) for three years and returned there in 1968 and 1970.  She and her husband traveled to the United States at least once a year to see old friends and promote their wines.  Unfortunately, she has done too good a job at it; the prices for recent vintages of Pichon Lalande have doubled in price.  Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande is now regarded as one of the world's greatest red wine properties.