1996 Pichon Lalande Pauillac

[Claudius]

I had this at a friend's place after a number of white wines.

The colour was a nice dark mahongany red - there is a characteristic colour of Medocian reds at middle age - no overt browing, just the red changing to a mahogany hue.
Anyway, the nose screamed out Brett, and I have to say my mood dropped.
It remined me of some of the bretty Gruaud Laroses I've had and that is what I guessed it was.

The palate was better though lacks freshness and interest I'm afraid.
Dark fruits, leather, earth, tar were evident though it was too tarry for my like.
The others were proabably a bit more complimentary than moi but I really can't handle much Brett.
It just swamps the fruit, and the wine ends up tasting dull and rough.

I won't rate this bottle. It did improve over time but was never much good.
Oh well.

Of the white wines, we drank:

Heggies Eden Valley Riesling 2009 - young, vibrant, tasty, delicious clean, ripe fruit with lots of intensity. Excellent
Brokenwood Indigo Vineyard Chardonnay 2008 - very good but I think not ready. Dense fruit and integrated French oak.
Remoissenet Meursault Genevrieres 2004 - A big, powerful, dense wine with ginger, nuts, honey and spice. A touch of mineral to cut the fruit sweetness. Excellent wine and I think 04 is for medium term drinking. This domaine is now turning out complex and interesting wines - and I've started importing them into SIngapore.

[DavidG]

Sorry the '96 PL disappointed. Have to wonder if it saw some warmth somewhere along the way, given the obviousness of the Brett and the mahogany color change, neither of which I've experienced with this wine.

[JimHow]

This has been a consistently immense wine in my experience.

[Comte Flaneur]

Agreed...this is the first disappointing review I have read of this wine, which I have down as the greatest wine this estate has produced since 1982

[Claudius]

Guys
Being in Singapore, it could have been heat affect allong the way.
The colour was not a problem- the mahogany is a tone I notice in Bordeaux of this colour - not brown/orange at all.
Yet Brett is not "caused" by storage - it does make it worse though, and maybe it was just a bad case.
The owner of the wine is a very experienced drinker and part owner of a major wine company.
He also advises that the other bottles he's tried from the same case (OWC) were also bretty - and he had the wine shipped in reefer freight.

[Chasse-Spleen]

Maybe it was the reefer?

[RDD]

Maybe it was just corked.

[jal]

Maybe all the bottles in the case were fake.... All I know is that I had this wine three or four times and it doesn't even come close to your description.

[Claudius]

Guys
The wine was bretty, not corked or cooked.
I've been drinking Bordeaux for about 35 years and have drunk heaps of vintages of Pichon lalande covering four decades.
I also have a pretty well trained technical palate having done work with research institutes over the years.
I have never had an overtly bretty PL before.
Brett is a batch problem, not individual bottle problem, and the owner of the case (who has had 5 of them so far) reckons they are all the same.
He opened it to see if I could guess it! I said Gruaud larose.

The wine was not fake.
It was purchased on indent in Sydney and we both know the importer well.
If fake, it would not have tasted like Gruaud Larose!

What I am suggesting is that some cases may have been brett infected and the moving to Singapore (he moved a year or so ago) has probably exacerbated the issue.
Yet the move will NOT cause brett - the infection would have to be in the bottle already.
The overt stinkiness did blow off a little but never went away.

[DavidG]

Agree with Claudius. I think his bottle showed poorly because of Brett. High temps can allow Brett that's already in a bottle to "bloom," making the effects much more noticeable than a similarly infected bottle that's been kept at 55 degrees all its life.