2005 Réserve de la Comtesse

The 2005 Pichon-Lalande was one of the more surprising wines of the vintage in April. Made in a rather polite, highly aromatic style, it struck me as almost more Margaux than Pauillac in character. For his part, technical director Thomas Do-Chi-Nam described vintage 2004 as "very Pauillac," and the new 2005 as "very Pichon-Lalande." The fruit in '05 was ripe and nicely concentrated, he explained, with the same number of grape clusters as usual but with smaller berries and thorough ripeness promising a lot of tannins. "We pick for red fruits, not jammy fruits," noted Do-Chi-Nam. "Too many people tried to extract everything; but that's not our way of thinking." Incidentally, this wine features a high percentage of cabernet and less merlot than usual, a formula I usually associate with the best vintages here.