The best since the 1990, the 2000 Pichon-Longueville Baron is just now starting to shed some baby fat and develop additional complexity and layers. This still ruby/plum-colored beauty boasts a phenomenal nose of blackcurrants, tobacco leaf, lead pencil shavings, and new saddle leather. It's deep, full-bodied, and sexy, with incredible amounts of texture and opulence that keeps you coming back to the glass. It makes a mockery of so many Bordeaux today that are made in a so-called elegant style yet lack the fat, richness, and density to ever hit this high a level. With low acidity, beautiful purity of fruit, sweet tannins, and a great finish, it's in the early to middle range of its drink window (I love it today) and has another two decades of sensational drinking ahead. Readers wanting to know what truly great Bordeaux tastes like should open a bottle of this!

A rich and spicy wine with lots of walnuts, dried berry and plum. Full and very savory. So much tobacco and sous bois. Roasted fruit too. Classic 2000.

The 2000 Pichon-Baron has long been a great wine, after what in retrospect was a middling period during the 1990s. It retains a wonderful bouquet of blackberry, raspberry, mineral and pencil lead that is both intense and focused. The palate is medium-bodied with firm tannin. A masculine and slightly backward Pauillac, yet the arching structure is very impressive and there is a sense of solidity toward the dried-blood-tinged finish. This puts a marker down between what comes before and what comes after at this Second Growth.

The 2000 Chateau Pichon Baron is just getting better and better and better. Perhaps the magnum format played its part, but nevertheless...just...wow. This is a millennial Left Bank with the keys to the top drawer. It has an incredibly precise, mineral-driven bouquet with intense black fruit infused with cedar and graphite scents. It just reeks of Pauillac in an almost uncompromising, yet compelling manner. The palate is structured, stylish and effortless, extraordinarily pure and unerringly youthful.

Rock-solid, with a block of currant, fig and blackberry paste notes forming the core, while youthful brambly-edged grip still holds sway throughout. Lots of enticing licorice root and sweet tobacco flavors wait in reserve, and there's nice lift from a light savory hint at the very end. Still has a ways to go.