2003 Chamber of Horrors

A bunch of us gathered at Piccolinos in London, for those who know it, just behind Liverpool Street Station, to taste some 2003 Bordeaux continuing our vintage theme series.

Flight one:

2003 Château D’Aiguilhe - France, Bordeaux, Libournais, Castillon Côtes de Bordeaux

Had a pungent nose…not in a good way…and an oxidative note, which became more pronounced. Has a slutty attack, but the palate is a mess. It falls off and is harsh and astringent. (77 points)


2003 Clos Fourtet - France, Bordeaux, Libournais, St. Émilion Grand Cru

Ripe, lush and fat, with lowish acidity, tannins receding, this holds together nicely on the palate with little sign of astringency and possibly the best balanced wine of the night. Quite classy. Commendable. I would happily drink this but I wouldn’t buy it even at half the £120 asking price. (90 points)


2003 Château Pavie - France, Bordeaux, Libournais, St. Émilion Grand Cru

Lush entry with a bit of bush viney heat on the entry. The palate is seamless, smooth and plush. Modern Pavie and 2003 on the right bank? I expected to hate it; but it grew on me. It has attractive red fruits and the superior terroir starts to shine through all the gloss and make up. Revisiting at the end of the evening it had evolved into an attractive wine with alluring soy and Asian spicey notes. (92 points)

Flight two:

2003 Château Meyney - France, Bordeaux, Médoc, St. Estèphe

Corked unfortunately. Unfortunately because there was half a chance this could have been half decent e.g., corked ok, but not cooked? (Not rated)


2003 Château Lafon-Rochet - France, Bordeaux, Médoc, St. Estèphe

Classical nose, nice ripeness, not obviously over-ripe, but it remains quite tannic and the finish is harsh and falls off abruptly. (85 points)


2003 Château Rauzan-Ségla - France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Margaux

I have tasted some wonderful vintages of Rauzan-Segla over the last year or so: 1983, 1985, 1995, 2001, 2010, 2015 and 2016. In comparison the 2003 is a car crash. The nose is uncharacteristically roasted and unpleasant. On the palate it is a bit better but it is still hot, harsh and unbalanced. Over-baked and lacking in freshness. Traumatic by the standards of this outstanding estate. (82 points)

Flight three:


2003 Château Calon-Ségur - France, Bordeaux, Médoc, St. Estèphe

Ripe rich, on the edge of the spectrum but holds together well on the palate. It is a tad gloopy and lacks freshness, but it finishes well and is a good wine in the context of a very problematic vintage. Like the Lafon it is recognisable as claret, and one of the better wines on the night. (88 points)


2003 Château Cos d’Estournel - France, Bordeaux, Médoc, St. Estèphe

Comes across as exotic and classy. Go in there and it has an alluring kinkiness, but it does flatter to deceive somewhat. It is not recognisably claret and does not have the equilibrium which marks out great Bordeaux and the more you study it the more it’s flaws come out, like its drying finish; but in this company it really stands tall. (91 points)


2003 Château Montrose - France, Bordeaux, Médoc, St. Estèphe

A familiar wine which is ripe, quite ready, and is a bumptious and chewy mouthful of delicious claret. My wotn. (93 points)

Flight four:

2003 Château Batailley - France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Pauillac

Recognisably Pauillac berry attack, like many of the other wines it is a bit hot and unbalanced and tails off. (85 points)


2003 Château Grand-Puy-Lacoste - France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Pauillac

A horror show. Tastes like a case of the fruit being cooked before it properly ripened. Tinned fruit. Hot, out of balance with a short finish. As bad as the last bottle I encountered. The anthesis of what good Bordeaux is all about. (80 points)


2003 Château Rieussec - France, Bordeaux, Sauternais, Sauternes

A have a case of halves on the go, my house Sauternes. Usual high standard. (93 points)

I have always been down on the 2003 vintage. Partly for that reason I was really looking forward to this tasting with an open mind. But these wines came in well below my modest expectations. It is clear, in my opinion, that this is a difficult vintage and the Bordelaise really struggled to cope with the extreme heat.

One of the qualities that makes Bordeaux great is wines with impeccable balance and equilibrium. Freshness, restraint and typicity. Which the 2003s conspicuously lack. In some cases it is easy to be flattered by the 2003s. Lafite and Latour fashioned delicious wines that were fully ready to drink before they reached their tenth birthday.

That should set off alarm bells, because on average Lafite and Latour take 30 years to reach their drinking window. LLC and the Pichons also managed to cope admirably. But Margaux is a disaster area in 2003, possibly even worse than the right bank.

These wines command very high prices. I have sold off pretty much everything bar a case of Pontet Canet, in respectful deference to Our Dear Leader, JimHow Supreme Commander of BWE. If he says it’s is Great it must be. I very much doubt that that 2003 will replicate 1947. Many of the wines are prematurely aged, and most will probably just go down hill from here as their flaws are attenuated by age. They won’t hit the wall like some NW wines do, but they won’t improve.

If there is a vintage to short, this is it.

“I have always been down on the 2003 vintage. Partly for that reason I was really looking forward to this tasting with an open mind”

That sound like a contradiction, but it’s clear from your excellent post that you were still trying to find some good.

Have you tried some of these in blind tastings with other vintages?

Not really a contradiction. I have catalogued my bad experiences with these wines before, and was open to changing my opinion.

Funnily enough Leoville Lascases 2003 showed well in a Judgement of Paris tasting recently in which its flight mates included Dominus 1991.

I also drank through a case of Ducru 2003 which was quite good, and remarkably forward. Likewise my Pavie (a gift) was a pleasant surprise as was the Clos Fourtet.

But I think there is a fundamental problem with many of these wines, and it showed the other night.

Thanks for the excellent report - sounds really awful! 2003 is probably the most divisive vintage ever. I sold almost all mine, before buying a few back this year for my daughter’s birth case, because my experiences were just like your evening of fun. It’s the vintage that finally turned me off RMP for good. Just reading your description of GPL reminds me why - I can still remember fuming, when I compared the EP notes for the 03 with those for the 00 - they were practically identical, when the wines could hardly be more different. It’s a weird vintage overall and luckily one of a kind, so far, in that it’s really awful but with a dozen or so very good, possibly great wines. Even the latter are not universally loved.

I think the only point you make which I would perhaps nuance concerns the prices - over here at least, they are not too bad compared to other vintages for the top wines. Oddly enough, Pontet-Canet’s price has actually been dropping over the last three years and the others are pretty stable.
If ever there was a vintage not to buy EP, this was it - far better to wait ten years or more and pick up a bottle or two to try before further commitment. The chances of actually choosing the top dozen either EP or at release were practically zero.

Thank you for the notes. Last night I popped a 2003 Calon Segur and I thought it was terrible, which is a bummer because the bottle was expensive. Only issue was, is it flawed or just bad? I am still not sure.

Sadly Tariq I’m not surprised - I’ve never been a fan, which is strange since St.Estephe was one of the better appellations in 2003. I forgot to mention earlier - I’ve been enjoying Cos Labory 03 over the last two nights - it needs a good decant but it’s really rather good, full of ripe and juicy fruit. I’ve never tried Cos Major but I can definitely recommend Cos Minor for once.

The heat problem was obvious when I tasted en primeur, and it was a vintage that I could not understand how Parker could have liked. Ironically one of your best wines was the Pavie, which Parker and Jancis famously clashed over.

There are a handful of good, fun wines in 2003 (most are in the northern Medoc), but even those aren’t nearly as good as their 2005 counterparts.

Yea I do not have many, but think overall St Estephe did best. Have had some excellent First Growths as well. Montrose and Sociando are my standouts.

Gruaud Larose 2003 is most worthwhile.

From recent memory…2003 D’issan, Sociando, Lafite
Fantastic!

Had 2003 Pavie 2x…meh

Rocky Horrors! Would the Haut Medoc qualify? I just opened my last 2003 Sociando Mallet and it was very good.

The only 2003 French red I still own and have any confidence in is the 2003 Clos des Lambrays.

The torrid heat wave meant vines simply stopped ripening anything but grape sugars for too much of the growing season, and you can taste the weird high alcohol/stewed fruit clashing with the “everything else not really ripe” elements. That said, of Bordeaux, Burgundy, North Rhone and South Rhone, there are fewer outright disasters in Bordeaux.

If 1982’s early accessibility hid the long-term potential of the wines, this is the inverse, where too many people assumed the early accessibility implied long-term potential.

Love the thread title, by the way. I expected a note on some forgotten Aussie Shiraz.

Based on this thread, I opened a half-bottle of 2003 Pontet-Canet tonight, the only 2003 Bordeaux in my cellar. Solid bottle with plenty of life remaining.

A very complete bottle of the 2003 Branaire Ducru was my cooking companion the last couple of nights. I’ve had a lot of this over the years, and tend to favor the fat, solar years.

I looked through my Bordeaux collection and have 4 bottles of 2003. And all of them were bought to complete verticals- none for pleasure.

I disliked the vintage en primeur; fat, rich and extremely soft. There were some estates that tried acidifying, but that generally ends up in a slightly weird finish, a spurious brightness which it is hard to find anywhere else in the wine.

My 2003 favorite was Montrose which you seem to like , And Latour . But overall , I agree with your assessment . It was too hot is 2003

While many 2003 BDX have not aged well, I find 03 Montrose, 03 Cos, 03 Latour, and 03 Lafite to be stunning wines. 03 Pichon Lalande and 03 Pichon Baron are both outstanding, but not in the same league. I like a few Saint Emilion, but overall, it is a difficult year.

2003 Pontet-Canet is fantastic right now.

I like Leoville-Barton as well.