Bordeaux 2015 Primeurs: Pauillac
You have to have your wits about you as you arrive at Château Pichon-Baron. The Médoc’s most photogenic château attracts camera-wielding visitors in the same manner hungry tasters are drawn helplessly to the cheese table at the Pontet-Canet primeurs-week lunches (or at least, so I hear). These amateur photographers, be they tourists or barrel-sample tasters, are usually far more focused on finding the perfect angle and framing for their shot than they are on watching their step. It doesn’t help that the best spot from which to photograph this striking creation is probably on the far side of the road, or maybe just halfway across.
I gingerly steered my hire car around the usual gaggle of shutter-clickers, careful not to sweep any of them off their feet. I had already added a new scratch to the rear bumper of my hire car when parking at Château Raymond-Lafon, a few days earlier. The last thing I needed now was a hapless tourist, his Mark III Canon 5D and Lonely Planet guide sent flying through the air, decorating the windscreen.
I came to a halt in the parking area, next to the vines on the left of the château, my hire car free of new scratches and blood stains. That is more than can be said for the wine critic who was leaving as I arrived, who confidently reversed his car over one of the vineyard posts. The “oops, silly me!” expression on his face was an interesting response. Thankfully he missed all the vines. The identity of the individual will, my lawyers tell me, have to remain confidential.
