This is glossy and sophisticated, with so much graphite, ink, pencil shavings, blackberries, blackcurrants and blackberry leaves on the nose. Classy and powerful with very sleek tannins. Dark chocolate and blackcurrants. So long and deep. Drink or hold.

At 30 years of age, this is a rock star Pauillac! It combines power, refinement, polished tannins, ripe, juicy, bright fruit, tobacco, cedar and cigar box notes that hit you with their full-force. The wine is rich and mouth-filling. The tannins are soft, polished and long, there is freshness and purity of fruit in the finish that hangs with you for close to 50 seconds. This could get a bit better, or not. So if your bottles are in great shape, drink it now and over the next 12-15 years for maximum enjoyment, before it begins its gentle decline. Read more at:https://www.thewinecellarinsider.com/wine-tasting-note/?vintage=1989&wine=Chateau%20Pichon-Longueville%20Baron

One of the wines of the vintage, the 1989 Pichon-Longueville Baron is drinking beautifully today. Bursting from the glass with aromas of ripe blackcurrants, plums, Cuban cigar, loamy soil, black truffles and burning embers, it's medium to full-bodied, rich and enveloping, with powdery tannins and a concentrated core of fruit. Fleshy and dramatic, with a sumptuous, low-acid profile and a long, expansive finish, to my palate this is the one 1989 Pauillac that, on a good day, can rival the extraordinary 1989 Lynch Bages. While I tend to think it's at its peak, every bottle I open from my cellar in Beaune seems to be better than the last. - William Kelley

Stunning wine, one of the very best 1989s. Rich blackish crimson with a rich nose that is still very sweet and fragrant. But the wine is lovely and refreshing too. Almost minty and aromatic. This stands up well to comparison with the first growths. Bravo! 18.5/20

A hot dry vintage that at over 30 years old is really beginning to be sorted out into the great and the 'drink up' wines. This is one to look out for, welcoming aromatics of smoked earth, rosebud and liqorice root, great complexity of flavours, waves of tobacco and brambled blackberry and raspberry puree. Still plenty of fruit here, although tertiary and unfussy. Exotic spices also of cinammon and turmeric. Lovely - you can see why Jean Marie Matignon calls this his first great vintage, five years after he took over as technical director, and it just sings of Pauillac restrained power. Yields up at 55-60hl/h.

What a nose here, from crushed mulberry to tanned leather to tar. Full-bodied, with big, velvety tannins that are soft and caressing, like cashmere. This is so tight and powerful still; it seems to be holding back. Be patient, because it will open with another five or six years of bottle age. Hard to wait. So why do it?—'89/'99 Bordeaux blind retrospective (2009). Drink now. – JS