We decanted the Château Pichon-Longueville Comtesse De Lalande, Pauillac, 1982 that we brought for a couple of hours before bringing it out for the heartier dishes of the night. We chose the wine mainly for two reasons: it is a Robert Parker 100-point "perfect" wine, and 1982 was the year of our birth (and also a banner year in Bordeaux). The wine had an intoxicating nose of ripe fruit, cassis, and tobacco; I detected notable hints of tobacco and spices on the palate. It had a meaty, chewy mouthfeel and a long, lingering finish. To quote Mr. Parker:
"I have had this wine a half-dozen times over the last eleven months, and have rated it either 98, 99, or 100 on every occasion. It is a fully mature, sumptuous, gloriously perfumed, luxuriously rich Pauillac the likes of which are rarely encountered. The color is a dark plum/ruby with amber at the edge. Spectacular aromatics offer up cedar, smoke, jammy black and red fruits, minerals, licorice, and toast. Unctuously-textured and full-bodied, with low acidity, fabulously sweet, rich fruit, surprising definition for a wine of such lushness and intensity, this is one of the vintage's most compelling and profound efforts. It has been delicious since birth, but absolutely stupendous over the last decade."
I do no hesitate to say that this was one of the top red wines I've ever tasted. We asked to keep the bottle, which was cleaned out and nicely presented in the signature French Laundry livery. Corkage was a hefty $50.
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