1981 Château Pichon Lalande

The 1981 Pichon-Lalande was served with the 1982 and 1983 by estate director Nicolas Glumineau. I must confess that I was shocked how well it showed, far surpassing the example shown at a vertical a few months earlier. This has a lovely bouquet of black fruit, autumn leaves, cedar and bay leaf, clearly bestowed with more vigor than previous bottles. The palate is medium-bodied with fine tannins, leather and sage-infused fruit, like before. (NM)

The 1981 Pichon-Lalande is a vintage that I have tasted two or three times. The bouquet always requires aeration, but now I feel that it is just beginning to flag with age. The palate is medium-bodied and rests on the freshness imparted by the acidity, offering dusky black fruit with touches of leather and sage. It conveys a fine sense of cohesion and focus, though its lack of energy suggests that it should be consumed sooner rather than later. Tasted at the Pichon-Lalande vertical in London.

This wine seems to be just beginning to turn the corner and was excellent in its most recent tasting. For much of its life it has been a stunning wine, not far off the mark from the prodigious 1982. The color is still a healthy dark garnet with some amber creeping in at the edge. The wine shows a very distinctive nose of asphalt, tobacco, and cigar box, intermixed with some sweet cherries and black currants. In the mouth it is medium to full-bodied, but the fruit seems to be ever-so-slightly fading. In the finish, the tannins and acidity are beginning to poke through. Nevertheless, this is still underrated and always a sleeper vintage for Pichon-Lalande, but it requires consumption.