Pichon Baron is owned by the AXA insurance group, which takes its winery investments (including in Port and Tokaji) very seriously. On the nose this wine has immense, resonant, blue-fruit purity – blue plums and tart blueberries – and keeps spilling over with aromas, from flower pollen to sweet hay. In the mouth it is pure to the taste, and smooth as silk to the touch. It shares its immaculate transparent quality with its Countess neighbour across the Route des Châteaux: two prancing Pauillacs. This one finishes saline and slinky.