1982 Chateau Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande 2eme Cru Classe, Pauillac

Another dazzling wine, the 1982 Pichon Lalande is utterly profound from the very first taste. In the glass, the 1982 is powerful and explosive, with seemingly endless layers of flavor that continue to unfurl over time. Vivid, intensely aromatic and seamless, the 1982 has enough pedigree and depth to drink well for at least several decades. What a wine!

May Eliane de Lencquesaing had been at Pichon since 1978, so four years by the time the 1982 rolled around. The Merlot levels are a little higher than they are today (it was a favourite grape of her father's), but this flamboyant, fleshy style is exotic in all the right places. In fact it jumps out of the glass, with its caramel-edged sweet black fruits. The aromatics are still full-on wow, the fruits and tannins melded perfectly together. It's been two years since I last tasted this wine, and it was every bit as good back then. Harvest 16-30 September. 8% Petit Verdot finishes the blend. Drinking Window 2018 - 2045
Tasted by Jane Anson (at 67 Pall Mall, 05 Jul 2018)
Part of Jane Anson's top fine wines of 2018

This delivers on all fronts; a sharp, edgy, enveloping and forceful wine with so much life and lift. The nose smells of baked cherry pies with vanilla, exotic spices, cola, mint, blackcurrants and strawberries. Racy, showy and shiny with floral accents of potpourri as well as tobacco, cigar box and caramel. Smooth and supple, extremely well framed on the palate with bite and grip to the plush but also mineral-laced tannins. This is still shining brilliantly at more than 40 years old: confident and truly memorable. Lots of life to go for this beauty. Winemaker Jean-Jacques Godin.

A great example of a word-of-mouth hit, the 1982 Pichon Comtesse has built its reputation by delivering time and time again, giving the First Growths a run for their money with its cigar box and pencil lead Pauillac signature and the caressing ripe fruits of a great quality vintage. I have tasted this every two years for the past six years, and each time I have expected it to be past its peak, and each time it has proved me wrong. You get plenty of tertiary flavours, certainly, with truffles and rose petals, together with exotic dried spices of turmeric and cumin and barely-there tannins. Got to be the best value of the wines tasted in this 1982 horizontal, even though it has risen in price over the past 5 years. May-Eliane de Lencquesaing owner at the time, having stepped up to take over her family estate in 1978. Yield 40hl/h, harvest 16-30 September.

I've been lucky enough to have had the 1982 Château Pichon-Longueville Comtesse De Lalande a half dozen times over the past few years and it continues to show magically. Tasted out of a magnum, it has a still lively plum/ruby hue as well as gorgeous Pauillac notes of blackcurrants, smoked earth, cedarwood, pencil lead, and forest floor. It's unquestionably fully mature and in that sweet spot where it has incredible aromatics, beautiful, sweet fruit, no hard edges, and a gorgeous finish. I don't see it falling off a cliff any time soon, yet there's no need to delay gratification either. This is a magical, heavenly Bordeaux I wish every reader could taste.

While bottles that have been traded or traveled extensively are beginning to tire, I was fortunate to buy a case of the 1982 Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande from a cold cellar in Alsace where it had remained unmoved since release. Given impeccable storage such as this, the wine remains simply remarkable and numbers one of the vintage's greatest achievements. Soaring from the glass with aromas of cassis and blackberries mingled with hints of cigar wrapper, dark chocolate, licorice and violets, it's medium to full-bodied, broad and velvety, with a sensual and enveloping core of fruit, rich but melted tannins and a long, resonant finish. Seamless and complete, I'd choose a pristine bottle of the 1982 Pichon Lalande over any of the Pauillac first growths, and I'm trying to ration my remaining half-dozen bottles without much success. 100pts WK
One of the monumental wines of the last century is the 1982 Pichon Lalande. Since bottling, it has flirted with perfection, and was a sprinter out of the gate, which gave rise to questions about how quickly it would begin its decline. However, at age 27, it retains all its glossy, rich, flamboyant cassis fruit, chocolaty, berry jam-like notes, and plenty of earthy, foresty flavors. This is a full-bodied, extravagantly rich Pichon Lalande seemingly devoid of acidity and tannin, but the wine is incredibly well-balanced and pure. It is an amazing effort!

Several years ago, I purchased a case of the 1982 Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande from a frigid Alsatian cellar where it had lain undisturbed since release, and from these bottles, it continues to very much merit a three-digit score. One of the most flamboyant, sensual wines of the vintage, it offers up a sweet bouquet of blackcurrants and blackberries mingled with notions of orange rind, violets, licorice and pipe tobacco. Full-bodied, supple and enveloping, with melting tannins, ripe acids and a long, cedar-inflected finish, it continues to deliver magical drinking. Having drunk the 1982 six or seven times this year, however, I am forced to concede that bottles that show this level of vibrancy and flare aren't so easy to find, so now is a great time to start pulling corks in earnest. This may not prove to be the very longest-lived wine of the vintage, but its star certainly did burn bright!

If you have a bottle or two, or more, and you have been waiting, there is no reason to hold off. Incredibly sensuous, silky, rich, long and deep, the wine is aromatic, fresh and complex, with a finish that does not want to quit. Popped and poured, no decanting is needed here.

This unfurls with amazing grace, as refined tannins let the warmed cassis, macerated plum, pain d'épices, melted licorice, roasted alder and smoldering tobacco notes drape together and hang endlessly on the finish. A stunner that has been stuck at at this sublime point for a while, with no signs of moving any time soon. Thoroughly sublime and still the modern-era high-water mark for these wines.—Non-blind Pichon Lalande vertical (July 2014). Drink now through 2030. — JM

The 1982 Pichon-Lalande has a very pure bouquet, sensual and beautifully defined, featuring blackberry and hints of graphite, and later crushed violet, so that the aromatics are almost Margaux-like. The palate is medium-bodied with a slightly edgy, balsamic-tinged entry. There is great depth, focus and power here, though in recent encounters I find the secondary aromas more prominent, and the wine no longer possesses the flamboyance that it demonstrated a decade ago. Hints of tar and pencil shaving line the persistent finish. This remains a great wine, and yet several bottles in the last 24 months suggest that it is no longer the perfect wine that it clearly was in the late 1990s. Tasted at a vertical tasting at the château.

Deep red-ruby color. Liqueur-like aromas of currant, cedar, lead pencil, truffle and smoked meat. Magically sweet and silky in the mouth, with superb depth of flavor and a complete absence of rough edges. A huge wine with utterly compelling sweetness and great terroir character. Powerful if somewhat unrestrained. Finishes ripely tannic, long and sweet. Many tasters still rank this among their two or three favorites of the vintage. Drink now to 2015.

Gorgeous, mellow, sweet fruit. Still fresh with some raciness. Rich and glorious. Definitely not on the way out yet! (JR)