Review of 2009 Reserve de la Comtesse: Well, that was disappointing.

Well, that was disappointing. This is a $49 wine which scored 94-96 points by Wine Enthusiast.

Ten years old, it didn't drink that well at all.  It drank like a mediocre $13 bottle. You could coax a tiny trace of black currant fruit from it, and maybe some plum. The flavors were dark and the whole wine was out of balance. This is the second wine of the famed Super-Second Growth Pichon Lalande, and we can only hope the great Pichon Lalande doesn't age so poorly at this. It's possible that the second wine shouldn't be held for ten years, but the reviews (it gets about 89-90 points on Cellar Tracker) all say it still could use some more aging. I'm not so sure--a Bordeaux should be showing you some impressive flavors by ten years out. And I left half the bottle in the fridge for five days, to watch it and see if all the air time woke it up, but only very slightly.

Bordeaux may be suffering from climate change (which drives to black fruits, whereas I prefer red and purple fruits in my red wines). Or maybe the rater just got it wrong.