WTN: Longueville May You Run

[David M. Bueker]

• 1989 Château Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande - France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Pauillac (10/12/2023)
  Served blind, and decanted off the sediment about two hours prior to service, this was just gorgeous, and kept getting better throughout the tasting. Velvety red fruit, light oak spice, aged tobacco elements - it brought the whole package. Largely resolved, so not much back end tannin, which made it all the more seductive. Quite haunting in a good way. Memorable wine.

One of my favorite vintages of one of my favorite chateaux.
Love " haunting in a good way"

[David M. Bueker]

The 1989 Angelus that was poured alongside was "haunting in a bad way" as it was rather badly corked. Even more disturbing was that three of us clearly noted the TCA on the nose (it was quite overwhelming), the palate was rich, but obviously flawed, and yet two of the group scored it as their top wine of the night. Odd distribution when two pick it as first, three pick it as dead last (by a significant scoring margin), and the remaining three pick it close to the top.

My tasting group has a significant number of people who really don't get TCA. I guess good for them, but wow.

My tasting group has a significant number of people who really don't get TCA. I guess good for them, but wow.

Not sure it is good for them. Even if they can't smell the TCA, I would assume they are not smelling the wine in all of its fullness. So they are still getting a compromised product, but having fewer clues to diagnose the fact that it is compromised.

[David M. Bueker]

My tasting group has a significant number of people who really don't get TCA. I guess good for them, but wow.

Not sure it is good for them. Even if they can't smell the TCA, I would assume they are not smelling the wine in all of its fullness. So they are still getting a compromised product, but having fewer clues to diagnose the fact that it is compromised.

The frightening part is how much most of them like the flawed wines!

Thanks for the note - I have a small store of this and was wondering how it was doing. BTW, the vintage that many collectors skipped was 1994 and it turned out to be excellent for this label. Worth keeping an eye out for it as it sometimes pops up at an advantageous price - the general rep of the vintage puts many off.