Château Pichon Baron 2000

Critic scores

• Vinous92

The 2000 vintage in Pauillac

Vintage benchmark: 96/100 (appellation benchmark, not a score for this wine)

Vintage character: After a wet spring, a dry summer and a perfect September gave the decade's first great vintage: dense, complete, with very long aging potential.

Overall reading of the year’s season across Pauillac. An estate can depart from it sharply, in frost or hail years, where two neighbours did not make the same vintage. What this particular wine actually gave is on its technical sheet and in the scores above.

Tasting

A deep, dark robe. A nose still in reserve, toasted bread, cedar, black fruit. A fleshy, elegant palate, at once powerful and refined. The tannins are silky, harmonious. Impressive length, almost mesmerizing. This vintage remains a benchmark for its thoroughly contained power. It beautifully expresses the breeding of the terroir, underpinned by a great quality of tannin.

Blend of the 2000 vintage

Figures from the 2000 sheet

• 13 % vol.Alcohol
• 31 hl/haYield
• 30 yrsVine age
• 180,000 bottlesProduction

Winemaking

In the vats, alcoholic fermentation begins: the conversion of the grape sugar into alcohol. Once alcoholic fermentation is complete, maceration continues its course in order to extract from the marc the tannins needed for a great wine.

Ageing

15 months in French oak barrels (80% new).

Terroir

Overlooking the Latour vineyard, the 73 ha of Domaine de Pichon Baron extend over gravelly soils of very high quality. This unique land, low in nutrients and without excess water, sparingly feeds old vine stocks whose grape production is deliberately small but of exceptional nobility. This terroir is capable of producing extraordinary wines, which the property sets out to do with excellence and consistency, respecting the original history of this vineyard. Composed of 62% Cabernet Sauvignon, 32% Merlot, 4% Cabernet Franc and 2% Petit Verdot, the extensive Pichon Baron vineyard has been divided up into meticulously defined plots. The great 40 ha terroir of the Pichon Baron knoll is devoted solely to the production of the Grand Vin and today accounts for the greater part of its blend.