TN: A couple of second growths

[billfgrady]

Last night, with steak au poive, mashed potatoes and snow peas, we drank:

1993 Chateau Pichon Baron: Opened and decanted ten minutes prior to dinner. Not much on the nose here. Mushrooms and some black fruit. Still holding some color, but much more amber colored than the Montrose. Although there was some disagreement on this, there were no tannins to speak of and very little fruit left. "Hollow" is a phrase that comes to mind. Possibly a bad bottle, but more than likely just over the hill.

1996 Chateau Montrose: Opened and decanted a little over an hour prior to dinner. A little dusty on the nose immediately but that blew off, revealing notes of cedar, graphite and berries. Gorgeous purple color. Drank beautifully. Very seamless combination of fruit and tannins. Wonderful wine. I'm going to hold off a couple years on opening my remaining bottle, but I would say that this is now open for business. Love this chateau and need to buy more.

[JimHow]

Thanks for the report, Bill.

I don't recall ever having the '93 Pichon Baron, a vintage that it seems to me performed better than expected, at least on the left bank. Maybe the vintage is finally in decline, a decade after it was supposed to decline.

I have a few bottles left of the '96 Montrose, your experience has been similar to mine.

[Jay Winton]

I bought a couple of 93 PB-neither one had much going on

[Comte Flaneur]

Thnaks Bill. You don't hear much about the 93s these days. I was disappointed with Pichon Lalande a couple of years back. The only one I have is Mouton, which I really like, and have been enjoying for the last 1-2 years, but some might find it austere to the point of obduracy. Good news on the Montrose, sounds like it is going to give a lot of pleasure over the next couple of decades.

[billfgrady]

Interestingly, we had a '93 Rauzan Segla about a year ago that was excellent and still had plenty of life ahead of it.

[stefan]

Every '93 I liked had a wonderful bouquet. I never had a '93 that was special in the mouth; the best ones were just decent and well balanced.

[oldwinenut]

I ended up with quite a stash of the '96 montrose and I am glad to hear that it is finally comming into it's own. This chateau has a history for producing extremely long lived wines.

[Claudius2]

Guys
I had the 93 PB at the Chateau in 2000 and it was pretty ordinary then.
SHowed no upside then.

[Houndsong]

Are we doing a collective volte-face on the 1996 Montrose? I thought opinion to date was that it was relatively weak sauce given the vintage.