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[H2] Wine is aCivilization
Open

[H2] 4 seasons of the vintage 2025

Vintages set to music

[H2] Wine is aCivilization
Open

[H2] 4 seasons of the vintage 2025

Vintages set to music

[H4] Introduction

[H1] Wine
is a Civilization
If civilisation means a combination of values and expertise, a way of life, an aesthetic, then Pichon Comtesse is the heir of civilisation. Our task is not only to perpetuate it but also to reinvent it. Being worthy of the founding Countess and those who have built the reputation of Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande wines for more than two centuries is not about simply repeating what has already been done before. It is about continuing to make progress, researching, innovating, calling our practices into question, moving with the times and looking ahead to the future. Wine is a civilisation that is constantly evolving.

The Language
The Place
The Architecture
The Values
The Technique
The Wine Art

[H3] Jacques Offenbach – “The Barcarolle” from The Tales of Hoffmann

Nicolas Glumineau presents the 2025 vintage at Pichon Comtesse.

[H2] Act 1

[H3] An underwhelming spring
Hopes were high for a milestone vintage to mark the quarter century… only for torrential rain and cool temperatures to delay the onset of flower formation. When the buds finally broke in the week of 3 to 7 April, just as the rain was beginning to subside, potential yields had already taken a hit. The number of bunches per vine was only slightly below average, but the number of grapes per bunch was down by as much as half.
If each new vintage is like a race – Merlot is a handy sprinter, the Cabernets are more like marathon runners – then this one had got off to a false start. In an era where abnormal is the new normal, as the impact of climate chaos becomes abundantly clear in all seasons, our team is less interested in the “performance” of our vines – synonymous with man’s eternally vain struggle to bend nature to his whims – and more concerned with their innate robustness, drawing inspiration from nature.
Such capacity for resilience is at the heart of our winegrowing philosophy: nurturing the life in our soils, enriching them with organic matter to boost their ability to manage the flow of water, to act as “stoppers or sponges” when the wind blows too hard, the winter is too mild, the spring frosts come too late, and the summer is too hot.
When flowering arrived at the very end of spring, between 22 and 31 May, the total rainfall figures were already running low. So too was the threat from vine diseases.

[H2] Act 2

[H3] A blistering summer
A wave of hot, dry weather soon settled upon the vineyards, slowing the growth of the grapes (especially the Cabernet Sauvignon which makes up 70% of the estate’s area under vine) and taking a further toll on potential yields. The impact was felt across the Pauillac appellation, but also in nearby Margaux and Saint Julien. The level of water stress soon hit its apogee. It seems like an eternity ago when managing excess rainfall was the name of the game, and winegrowers in the Médoc had to come up with ingenious ways to stimulate competition for water resources, spurring on the vines to give the very best of themselves. With rain resolutely refusing to fall from the heavens, the vines turned their attention to the subsoil, whose rich organic ecosystem had succeeded in storing the heavy rainfall of the previous vintage, rather than allowing it to drain away. Driven by their eternal lust for life, the vines squeezed out every drop of this precious liquid resource, developing at pace.

Barely a month after fruit set – which arrived between 28 July and 1 August – the team was already on the lookout for the first ripe grapes. The plot-by-plot picking strategy was fine-tuned once again. The Merlot was first out of the starting blocks, requiring early picking in order to protect its freshness, elegance and aromatic complexity. The harvest began on 28 August. Picking Merlot, before September has even begun? In living memory, we’ve never seen the likes of it.

We then had to be flexible, smart and responsive to bring in the Cabernet Sauvignon at the peak of its powers, with both the tannins and the pips achieving perfect ripeness.

[H2] Act 3

[H3] Approaching Autumn with kid gloves
96 days between flowering and harvest. Just thirty days between fruit set and phenolic ripeness. As the growing season entered its final phase, the pace quickened, creating a true make-or-break moment. Early-ripening records were toppling like dominoes, and the yields were barely thirty hectoliters per hectare for the Merlots… and just twenty for the Cabernets.

Until the very last plot was harvested on 23 September, the team had to combine constant vigilance with extreme patience, allowing the fruit to develop that signature balance of power and elegance which is the hallmark of our wines. After two spells of rain which raised (then dashed) hopes of an increase in quantities, the harvest was ultimately defined by its immense quality, in another vintage mercifully spared by gray rot. The grapes were ripe, the juices concentrated. Average ABV levels after alcoholic fermentation were running at 13.4%.

One thing was already becoming clear: 2025 would be a more than worthy addition to the pantheon of legendary vintages ending in 5.
Handled with utmost care, this was set to be a very special vintage for Pichon Comtesse.

[H2] Act 4

[H3] Winter forges a legend
Throughout the long history of winemaking at Pichon Comtesse, heavy fruit extraction has never been on the agenda, but this year our approach was gentler than ever. Over the past decade, a mantra has emerged during the fermentation process: more maceration, less extraction. Within the very first hours, given the rich texture and extremely high potential of the must, we adjusted the volume and frequency of pumping over. With simple maceration and infusion, the juices began to reveal their depth of character before fermentation had even begun. As alcoholic fermentation progressed, a sense of natural equilibrium came into focus, requiring virtually no human intervention.

Initial tastings conjured up some very propitious comparisons: 2022, 2020… Maybe even 2016 for the Cabernet Sauvignon, blessed with a rare sense of pedigree, unswerving precision, an august grandeur worthy of the Cistercians. The incredible texture and astonishing aromatic complexity of the Merlot offered a glimpse of future greatness, one of those great Pauillac vintages built for the long haul. The floral energy of the Cabernet Franc, with its distinctive rose and iris notes, was the final piece in the puzzle, completing Comtesse’s signature style.

As the final blend took shape in the depths of winter, this new vintage somehow transported us forty years into the past. The opening is crisp and precise, rather than broad; the mid-palate winningly indulgent; the finish long and flavorsome. Sensations, emotions, a sense of proportion… A world away from the performative power of those wines that batter the palate like breakers on the shore, 2025 Château Pichon Comtesse is an object lesson in concentration, as deep as the human soul. Imagine Offenbach’s Barcarolle, played on a lone cello.
Many years from now, when time has revealed its truths and history has made way for legend, 2025 Pichon Comtesse will join the pantheon of the great “5s” with its own story to tell. As always, time will work its magic…

Because the best is yet to come!

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