Belated birthday dinner at @bacchic.co with the wine hoes.

High quality, but just an absolute baby.
Decanted for 2.5 hours in a wide base decanter.

In the glass: deep dark inky purple. Full bodied. Fairly large meniscus for a 15 year old.

On the nose: this stayed shy and closed for most of the evening. This is a very precise nose: it is pure blackcurrant, tobacco, graphite. Pichon Barons are always oaky, but this was in good balance. As the wine eventually started to unfurl, notes of red plums. I don’t think we ever got the wine to fully open and unleash its aromatics even by the end of the night. But it did smell beautiful. Just very pure and focused

On the palate: the first thing that jump out was the oddly poorly integrated alcohol. I was immediately convinced that this was a 14/14.2% abv. Nope. Only 13.5%. But it was intensely alcoholic for some reason. Everyone remarked the same. Very high concentration of fruits. Mid to mid+ body. Tannins are still prominent and grippy but well palatable. Finish was mid+

I don’t really know what to feel about this. The purity of the nose is immediately obvious. But maybe just too young to have developed much complexity to it?

On this note, none of the 2010s have ever impressed. They almost always taste too young. Even the Le Clarence Haut Brion was not ready. The only exception was the Leoville Las Cases – that one was just insanely beautiful, and I still think of it.