The Battle
PICHON COMTESSE / PICHON BARON / LYNCH BAGES
“the battle tasters” lined up 11 vintages of the most renowned ‘super seconds’ of Pauillac against each other.
The results were surprising…
What is surprising? They should all be good, and I would expect PLL to win this.
Very interesting results. I prefer Baron myself so it’s interesting to see it rank so low in so many “top” vintages. Also interesting 89 ranked so low since many put it right there with the 90.
Fun read. Thanks!
Well, everybody was convinced lb would be the clear winner. It wasnt. Pb was going to be 2nd, it wasnt. the other surprise was that we were sure we would recognise the wines easily.again , Not the case.
I would actually expect LB to be last of these, though it is great and I love it. LB is coarser than the Pichons in my experience. For me, PLL is in a class of “first and a half growths” like Leoville Las Cases, La Mission and Palmer.
Next time, scan the results at a higher resolution! That chart gets very fuzzy if you try to enlarge it! 
your results mirror my gut from my experiences - pll first and lb just peeking pb - still all great wines
Wow what a tasting and thorough analysis. Clearly most were outstanding, with the top 12 wines all scoring 95 or better. I love all 3 of those wines but PLL has always been my favorite, based on its performance in top years like '82 and '00.
With only 2 points separating the top 12 it makes you wonder about the utility of points when comparing different tastings and different tasters. The rankings were much more definitive than the average point scores.
That tasting sure looks like a lot of fun.
You already presented solid documentation, but I wonder if you could have also included some sort of pricing analytics against the scores?
Given the very small (imo) differentials in average points between the 3 producers, almost across all vintages, can you conclude then that these wines are really not far off from each other?
Excellent break down report and tasting…thank you
I think it is an interesting tasting, and the analysis is fascinating. But one always comes back to the same question. Here you have a group of tasters that I do not know, I have no real knowledge of their palates, and in fact, many of the wines they have scored, I have had very different experiences, so does this have any relevance? It is interesting to see how they compare to the pros, but I think it would be foolish to make any kind of purchase based on this.
For instance Lalande 2000 does not just have the whiff of herbal green that is typical of the property, but has a pronounced bell pepper flavor, which I dislike. The 1989 Baron was extraordinary a couple of weeks ago, and the 1982 Lalande at a tasting at Kittle House a few months ago was a 100 point wine, while the Baron which I tasted a week later was at best in the very low nineties. Part of it can be put down to bottle variation, part to palate differences but there are enough problems there to make me wonder.
Good point Mark. Without a common basis it’s hard to know exactly what to make of anyone else’s scores. This is where notes are helpful. You and I are perfectly in synch on '89 Baron (had it last week) but differ on '00 Lalande. Yet I know why we differ because of your added description.
i included a link to a pdf , could you not acces it?
i dont know how to scan and import all images in 1 go, but you can access them on fb:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.487312521306171.102166.100000822823691&type=1
prices you can find on http://www.90pluswines.com/Winery/1702/Chateau-Lynch-Bages.aspx
http://www.90pluswines.com/Winery/1885/Chateau-Pichon-Longueville-Baron.aspx
and http://www.90pluswines.com/Winery/1886/Chateau-Pichon-Longueville-Comtesse-de-Lalande.aspx
This is exactly the kind of thing discussed about a year ago where disdain was expressed over using wine as a competitive sport. What do you think the producers would feel about seeing their wines used like this? I do not know any Medoc producers but I am very close with a small number of right bank people and know how they would feel.
Why not open each of those bottles separately, enjoying them with dear friends instead us using them in a sort of MMA battle?
why not do both?
first: tasting specific wines alongside eachother in order to learn to know and understand the wines, the vintages, the soil, the winemaker, the evolution of the wines over time
than: buy what suits you best, taking into consideration your personal taste, and your budget
finally: open the perfect bottle for a given ocasion: to match a certain dish, to enjoy with certain people
Ah! …the link! That’s better! In fact, much more data!
We tasted all wines blind, and were surprised when comparing our results to those of profesional tasters, although there are some big differances in ratings between them
as you can see in attached rating report
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/31139649/Wine%20tasting%20-%20Lynch%20%26%20Comtesse%20%26%20Baron.pdf
Amazing tasting! I’m kind of with Mark though on some the rankings. I very much agree on the wines he mentions. '82 Lalande stood up to all the first growths at an '82 dinner a few months ago. I think my biggest surprise in the rankings is the '00 Lynch Bages being on top. I’ve found this vintage sorely lacking and though I haven’t had a bottle in a number of years I would be surprised that it would have improved that much.
I too have had different experiences, and to some extent, much wider differences in preferences among the wines in similar vintages than what the score results in this tasting seem to show. It does appear, though, that all the tasters have almost a similar or homogeneous taste pattern as based on the very, very close high scores that were given the wines in each and in all vintages.