Yes, yet another thread about LP 2003! And yes, another thumbs up. This was one of the wines I was advised to buy for my daughter’s birth year case and good advice it proved to be.
I opened it late, at around 5pm and at first, like the Pontet-Canet 03 a few weeks ago, it wasn’t promising. Instantly recognizable as Léoville-Poyferré, with very spicy fruit, but more so than normal, slightly stodgy, with a very short finish. So I decanted it and two hours later, a different wine emerged.
The nose still needed a little coaxing at first to get the dark cherry, tobacco and spices, with Pauillac-like cigar box and cedar notes coming later. In the mouth, the spicy fruit hits first, loads of sweet blackberry and red cherry, then a much more sober middle section, quite thick and broad, full of blackcurrant, much more like a Pauillac than a St.Julien, before the spicy fruit returns for the long, persistent finish. One of the best wines of the year. 96 points.
My palate is fairly traditional, I had got a little tired of the LP style in recent years, so I was a bit wary, especially since it was a 2003, but no need: this is a great wine and a very fine example of LP, one of the best ever.
It’s not quite ready yet, in that the back end of the middle section, just before the finish, is slightly clumsy and the gears grind a little. But the power and concentration, along with the impressive grip and structure, are such that the wine will continue to improve. This will last for ten, maybe twenty years, so it was a perfect choice for my daughter.
When a wine costs as much as this, it’s odd to consider it as good value, but it is in fact a good buy. The original case I bought EP (and then sold) cost 47€; this batch cost 85€. The 09, for example, is more than double that and the 2010 is heading the same way, so it’s well worth getting hold of.