Bordeaux 2014 Primeurs: Château Pichon-Baron
The tasting at Château Pichon-Baron was as interesting as ever, not least because under the direction of Christian Seely and Jean-René Matignon quality here has been pushed higher and higher, even in more difficult vintages such as 2014, but also because this was my first chance to taste the grand vin against not only Les Tourelles de Longueville, long considered the second wine but now described as more of a sélection parcellaire, but also the new cuvée, Les Griffons de Pichon-Baron. This new addition to the range should now really be considered a second wine, made from the same terroir as the grand vin, selected out on the basis of tasting in the cellar.
I was curious as to the reason for the creation of Les Griffons de Pichon-Baron, after all there was already a second wine in existence to take rejected lots if required. I suspect Christian has already had to answer this question more than a few times, because I hadn’t even strung the necessary words together in my mind before the information came forth. “I created Les Griffons because there was increased demand for a second wine from some quarters, and I didn’t want to break the exclusivity arrangement we have with Les Tourelles”, said Christian. “So the obvious solution was to create a new second wine, distinct from Les Tourelles and selected by a different method”. It is, in essence, a commercial decision, although that isn’t to say the wine is not of great interest, and of good quality. “In style, it is closer to Pichon-Baron because the terroir of origin is the same”, Christian continued, and so it should give more cash-strapped buyers a more affordable bite of the Pichon-Baron cherry, even if it is a little more expensive (about 10-15% more) than Les Tourelles.
Anyway, on with the 2014 vintage. Unusually, the story of the flowering was not as positive here as it was elsewhere; the first vines flowered in June during what Jean-René Matignon described as wet and cold weather, and as a consequence the team here had a little coulure and millerandage on these early-flowering Merlots. In this, however, Pichon-Baron is something of an outlier (or perhaps they are just more precise in their report). The flowering of the later Merlots and the Cabernets was more typical of the vintage, being much more healthy and homogenous. Of note, this early difficulty experienced by the Merlot seems to have been ‘imprinted’ on the fruit, in the words of Jean-René Matignon, and they found that these Merlots lagged behind throughout the entire vintage. The Merlots therefore required a very strict selection at harvest.
Please log in to continue reading: