Chateau Pichon-Longueville Baron 2005

Professional Ratings

• 96 Connoisseurs' Guide
  One of the most memorable bottlings of our tastings of the 2005 Bordeaux, this wonderfully extracted effort captures all of the complexity and very deep curranty fruit for which the Pauillac appellation is justly revered, and it does so with a remarkable sense of balance and keen composition. It is clearly not one for the impatient, and its ample tannin requires upward of a decade before taming comes, but there are no questions at all about the depth of its fruity substance and its admirable stuffing or about its extremely promising future.
• 96 Wine & Spirits
  Baron was trapped in its oak en primeur, seeming flashy, luscious and soft. Now bottled and shipped, it has the unremitting tannic power of the vintage, balanced by unrelenting purity of fruit that somehow manages to anesthetize the monstrous tannin, to soften the extremely dry, mineral-bound finish into a caress. The wine may be bombastic, but it's also succulent and as sweet as a ripe black raspberry. It's easy to imagine this wine 50 years from now, in impeccable condition.
• 96 Jeb Dunnuck
  The 2005 Pichon-Longueville Baron is another concentrated, full-bodied 2005 that’s starting to drink well. Cassis, black cherries, tobacco leaf, cedar and classic Pauillac lead-pencil characteristics all emerge from this ripe, sexy, surprisingly rounded effort that has a stacked mid-palate and sweet, polished tannin. It’s impressive today but is going to cruise for another two to three decades.
• 94 Wine Spectator
  Offers crushed currant and blackberry on the nose, turning to tar and licorice. Full-bodied, with a solid core of ripe fruit and seamless tannins. Goes on and on. Very, very beautiful. A cross between the 2000 and fabulous 2003.
• 93 Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
  The 2005 Pichon Baron has a dense ruby/purple color, sweet crème de cassis fruit, lots of cedar wood and forest floor, medium to full body, ripe tannin, and a long finish of a good 30+ seconds. This is a beauty and one of the most successful Pauillacs of this vintage. Drink it now through 2035.