When it comes to enjoying wine, there are also little games that you don't really want to play, that you forbid yourself to play, and yet you do so again and again, almost compulsively, I would say. One of them is the comparison of the two wineries from the Bordelais: Pichon Longueville Baron and Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande. The name gives it away: almost two hundred years ago they belonged together, then they were torn apart - as so often happens - by division of the inheritance. Who can blame whom when even today the two wineries - both so-called "supersecond" - are compared with each other. Personally, I prefer the "Comtesse", while in recent years the "Baron" has been rated as better.
In the meantime, the competition between the two wineries (only the road separates the area) has long since become a direct struggle between investors. Pichon Baron, as it is also called for short, has belonged to the AXA insurance group for 24 years. The Comtesse Lalande, on the other hand, was run as a family estate until eight years ago and for a long time was managed by a woman - as befits its name - "with an iron hand", which earned it the name "The General". Now the Comtesse has also been sold to a multiplayer (to the champagne house Roederer. The shares are said to have already moved on again!)
This time, too, I compared - not directly, but almost unconsciously - the Baron with the Comtesse. No, I only have the Baron in the glass, the Baron 98; I haven't poured myself the Comtesse of the same vintage for a while (I still leave my bottles in the cellar, probably for a tasting in direct comparison to the Baron). So my comparison here is unfair: the Baron in the glass, the Comtesse far away, in the cellar and in my memory.
The Baron is perhaps better, but the lady is friendlier, more attractive, a seductive personality. The Baron - a nobleman, certainly - tries with cosmopolitanism, (put-on?) charm and - you can't miss it - a certain ostentation, (which, however, is neither unpleasant nor presumptuous). One is allowed to "show off" - also in the field of wine.
What excites me most about this Baron 98 is its openness. The wine does not seem at all pressed or trying to be a giant, which is something I notice from time to time with top wines in Pauillac. It stands by its mature age, its dignity, its warmth and depth (with people, one would say: its life experience). It even allows itself a certain elegance, a light play around its bouquet. It is a little plummy, malty - certainly - but as I said: suave, superior - I would almost say: sublime. Typical Pauillac, Bordeaux experts use to say - a buzzword, but apt in this case. Namely: commanding and dominant, regal, so to speak, and yet affable, charming, thoroughly inclined to the finer tones. (In contrast to some of its even higher-ranking neighbours such as Latour, Mouton or Lafite).