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Mid crimson with a garnet rim. Lovely aromas of Tobacco and dried leaf. Beautiful balance on the palate with M intensity. Great effort for a difficult hot vintage. Great wine given the conditions. No need for further cellaring. As good as you could expect from a 15 year old 2nd growth in a hot vintage.
Mid crimson with a garnet rim. Lovely aromas of Tobacco and dried leaf. Beautiful balance on the palate with M intensity. Great effort for a difficult hot vintage. Great wine given the conditions. No need for further cellaring. As good as you could expect from a 15 year old 2nd growth in a hot vintage.
Owner No Limit Fine Wines, Private Wine Consultant
9.5
Still young but finally taking on some tertiary character. A little simple to start but then after an hour it gained in weight and all the cool exotic spice comes out. I had this wine in 2008 when it was a baby, full of new oak and fresh blue fruits. Now she’s a different beast and still amazing.
Still young but finally taking on some tertiary character. A little simple to start but then after an hour it gained in weight and all the cool exotic spice comes out. I had this wine in 2008 when it was a baby, full of new oak and fresh blue fruits. Now she’s a different beast and still amazing.
Decided to continue drinking my 2003 Bordeaux from this hot year. This was in excellent condition. Rich crimson with a garnet edge. Aromatics of dry plum and cassis with pronounced cedar box - like the aromas you get from pulling out a chest of drawers in an antique shop. All in all obviously left bank Bordeaux. Medium weight mellifluous palate with perfect balance finishing with sandy fine tannins. Julia Harding’s drinking window of 2010 to 2018 proved to be conservative. Wonderful claret.
Decided to continue drinking my 2003 Bordeaux from this hot year. This was in excellent condition. Rich crimson with a garnet edge. Aromatics of dry plum and cassis with pronounced cedar box - like the aromas you get from pulling out a chest of drawers in an antique shop. All in all obviously left bank Bordeaux. Medium weight mellifluous palate with perfect balance finishing with sandy fine tannins. Julia Harding’s drinking window of 2010 to 2018 proved to be conservative. Wonderful claret.
The biggest and most full bodied wine of the evening was the Cos d'Estournel. From the hot 2003 vintage this also made it the youngest red of the evening. Big, irony, camp fire embers, black currants and cassis, toasty and well integrated oak buffer the wine. Time has peeled back some of that concentration revealing the heat that stuck out to me as the one big thing out of place. In the context of the vintage this might be OK but it turned me off. Good, but disappointing especially considering how critics went out of their way to speak of its lack of signs of heat.
The biggest and most full bodied wine of the evening was the Cos d'Estournel. From the hot 2003 vintage this also made it the youngest red of the evening. Big, irony, camp fire embers, black currants and cassis, toasty and well integrated oak buffer the wine. Time has peeled back some of that concentration revealing the heat that stuck out to me as the one big thing out of place. In the context of the vintage this might be OK but it turned me off. Good, but disappointing especially considering how critics went out of their way to speak of its lack of signs of heat.
St. Estèphe, Médoc, Bordeaux, France
