2003 Bordeaux -- is anyone else skeptical?

[BordeauxNut]

I've recently opened 375s of Pichon Baron, Calon Segur, Branaire Ducru, and Duhart Milon. I've been surprised by how unpleasant some of the wines are now. The tannins are really drying and the wines lack richness on the palate. They are either in a weird place or, as I suspect, they're shedding fruit much faster than the tannins are integrating.

Thoughts?

[DavidG]

Funny you should post this today as we just popped a 2003 Pontet Canet to drink with a grilled Flannery NY Steak.

I think it depends on the wine. From what I’ve heard, some seem to be drinking better than predicted back during en primeur season, while others are showing over-roasted or drying characteristics. Which ones have disappointed you Jim?

I bought just a few 2003s. Almost pulled a bottle of the Cos tonight but decided to let it rest a while yet. Cos was a very controversial wine during en primeur and I bought a couple just to see how they’d turn out. I haven’t opened one yet. I had a bottle of the 03 Pichon Lalande 6 months ago and found it enjoyable and true to type if still young.

The only 03 I bought in quantity (a case, based on Jim How's enablement) was the Pontet Canet. It was great young but shut down pretty tight for a while. Tonight, the 2003 Pontet Canet does have a strong streak of tannins that get a bit gritty on the back end but it’s far from drying out. It’s nowhere near approaching mature complexity but it’s a bit more open than my last bottle 2.5 years ago. Still plenty of fruit, not over-ripe or roasted, full bodied. I’m half way through the case and would say I’m still expecting it to develop into something more.

[KWP]

As I commented elsewhere I respectfully disagree on PB, and looking at your suspicious on CS too. I wouldn't expect Branaire or Duhart to be great wines at 15 years in 375ml. Fully expect PB to look like 88 or 89 in 10 years and wouldn't risk my money betting against CS.

I would sit on a case of Pontet Canet for a decade +, I only have a bottle or two so will drink them in 2028 and 2030.

Basing a vintage on 375ml format is a stretch I wouldn't make.

[Nicklasss]

I don't know what to think about 2003 for red Bordeaux. I don't have much left, and I'm kind of happy about that. But I might be wrong.

My last Duhart Milon and Sociando Mallet weren't great, but a bottle of Léoville Barton at JeanFred's place was excellent. But I would say the Barton was ready, what is unusual for that naturally long aging wine in other vintages.

Tell me I'm crazy, but I prefer way much the three vintages before and after 2003.

Nic

[AlohaArtakaHoundsong]

I really can't say I've had a bad 2003. Duhart, Pontet Canet, Lagrange, Sociando Mallet, Bourgneuf (Pomerol! of all appellations), La Tour du Mons (Margaux!), Domaine de Chevalier, Potensac, Pipeau and several other smaller/less notable wines have all drunk/are drinking fine. They certainly have the hallmarks of the vintage but I can't say I dislike them; to the contrary. The only wine I sampled and declined was a Charmail and that was just too oaky in relation to the substance to spur further interest. I am the poster boy for the Lagrange: I found it entertaining young in the face of almost universal scorn and it seems to be acquitting itself well now, I'm informed here.

[BordeauxNut]

I'm not sure about the comment regarding not being able to judge a vintage from 375s. My 2000s (even lesser wines like Charmail) from 375 are perfectly fine. There's no reason for a 15 year old 375ml of good Bordeaux not to be fine and generally representative.

Having recently tried Duhart, Branaire, Calon Segur, and Pichon Baron -- I found all unexciting. Three of the four I would describe as 'washed out' and dropping fruit faster than tannins. Some of the '88s were that way at age 15 -- but, that was a totally different vintage. It's certainly possible they are just in weird place.

I think it's becoming obvious that there's more exposure with 2003 to downside. Sure, they might reward extended aging. But if you had two highly regarded BDX from the same producer, one from 2003 and one from 2005 -- which would you have more confidence in to lay down for another 15 years?

Also -- regarding Pichon Baron -- the 2001 is better than the 2003, IMO.

[Blanquito]

The 2003 Duhart Milton was really terrific shortly after release. It was also still $28 so I bought 6-8 bottles, and man have these been disappointing since! I’ve tried it a couple of times in the last year or two, and boring is a good description. I agree on the Calon Segur and Branaire as well.

There many strong wines in 2003 (eg the 2003 Leoville Barton is excellent), but in general I am not a fan of the vintage to date. Many taste flabby, lacking energy.

Let’s give them 5 more years...

[JimHow]

Yeah, I think there have been some good and some bad.
Those 2003s we had early on with Patrick were delicious.
Sociando, Leoville Barton, the early Duhart, were great.
GPL was a disaster from Day One.
The great enigma, of course, was Pontet Canet.
It was like a big Mouton at the outset, but it seems to have evolved into a completely different wine since.
I'm not necessarily saying the Pontet has become a poor wine, it is just like nothing I expected it to be in its youth.

[DavidG]

I'll wait another 3 to 5 years before cracking another 03 Pontet Canet. I do agree with Kris about giving these time.

The dropping fruit faster than tannin that Jim observes can be concerning. But I've also been surprised by wines that come roaring back in later years (thinking of a number of 86s from our NYC retrospective), so I hesitate to count them out. Waiting on them is a bit of a gamble. You can't be sure of what you'll get.

[AKR]

I found that the 2003's Medoc's in general drank so well that I consumed many of mine before the 1996 or 2000's, so proportionately don't have as many left. As noted many times before, I particularly loved (and guzzled) the St Estephe's up much faster since they were so rich, and early drinking.

Personally I have not found them to be cracking up. I probably have an 03 Branaire every other month or so and its a fairly typical example (I think) for the vintage. Drinking nicely today and at a fairly stable point.

I've been lucky and bottles of Pavie and Pontet Canet in the last few years have been super - solid A wines.

========

The 2003's that have really disappointed me were the Southern Rhones, esp CNDP. On release I had idyllic dreams they might be like the plush yet enduring 1990's. Instead they grew flabby and tiresome as the years went on, sort of like a hectoring Elizabeth Taylor.

[marcs]

Does anyone remember their impressions of the 2003 Leoville Poyferre we had Saturday night at the DC convention? I don't really think it stood out to people -- I had a general impression that it was too young but can't recall much else -- but I don't know if that was due to the wine itself or the insane number of great mature wines that night making it hard for any non-incredible bottle to stand out.

[stefan]

For drinking now, I prefer 2003 Medocs to the 2002s, not that there is any hurry to drink them. I think that 2002 will be better in time, but I prefer 2003 to, for example, 1999. I have not yet tried any of the top tier 2003s, but I like those at the second level, including Poyferre, that I have drunk.

[JimHow]

The 2003 Duhart was great in its youth, it was on the cover of WS.
But I haven't had it in years.

[DavidG]

Markus, I thought the 2003 Léoville Poyferre was young. I liked the 90 and 00 best but thought the 96 was also on the upswing.

[BordeauxNut]

I agree with most of the points being made here. The wines were great young. Many are in a weird place now. The flower may bloom again (and I'm not saying it won't).

I'm just expressing the thought that 2003 is a little less of a sure thing (at any level) than other vintages. Having a lot of the top wines, I wanted to see if I was the only one who thought there were better bets in the world of wine...

'

[Comte Flaneur]

Count me as not a fan of 2003 Bordeaux. I think the fundamental problem was that the fruit got cooked before it ripened in many cases. The further up the Medoc you go, and the closer to the river you venture, the better your chances. Hence Montrose is good but it looks like a 30-40 year old wine. I have found many 2003s to be shockingly evolved - in colour as well as being relatively easy and simple. Bordeaux is all about equilibrium and I don’t get this in many 2003s. Having said that I have had some tasty ones. I have not drunk that many but Lagrange was very tasty last year even though it looked about 40 years old. Pichon Baron is tasty too. I have little doubt that Lafite and Latour are too from what I have read, but they have no right to be so evolved at such a young age. For estates like LLC, Ducru and Barton the 2003s are evolved, quite obvious and lacking in harmony and complexity. The only advantage is their forwardness.

[Antoine]

I am getting scared. I broke the bank for Pontet canet and Montrose and have only tasted Pontet canet so far (with Tesseron and co with Ian). What is your advice? Should I Montrose or not?

[marcs]

For estates like LLC, Ducru and Barton the 2003s are evolved, quite obvious and lacking in harmony and complexity. The only advantage is their forwardness.

Come on, man, the 2003 Leoville Barton is fantastic. Don't hate just because it tastes great!

[Comte Flaneur]

No Seriously Marc, it is an aberration and not worthy of the estate.

Lilian Barton Sartorius herself panned this wine when she presented her wines here a couple of years ago. She admitted she was embarrassed by it and suggested drinking it with spicey/Asian food. I think she is being a bit harsh on her 2003 but I agree with her that it is not well balanced. She said the unprecedented heat was a real problem, and difficult to deal with.

[Comte Flaneur]

I am getting scared. I broke the bank for Pontet canet and Montrose and have only tasted Pontet canet so far (with Tesseron and co with Ian). What is your advice? Should I Montrose or not?

Montrose is one of the best 2003s Antoine, and drinking very well. The bottle recently showed by Herve Berland had an alarmingly advanced colour, however. So there is no need to wait on this wine.

[danzur]

I'm gonna open a 2003 Montrose in the next few weeks-need to stand one up...

[jckba]

For estates like LLC, Ducru and Barton the 2003s are evolved, quite obvious and lacking in harmony and complexity. The only advantage is their forwardness.

Come on, man, the 2003 Leoville Barton is fantastic. Don't hate just because it tastes great!

I too am a big Barton fan and fan of this effort in this vintage as well, and while it is atypical in its forwardness as Ian points out; with 2 cases left, I have no plans of selling or trading any of them away. Consider that an emphatic vote of confidence on my part.

[BordeauxNut]

I just opened one (LB 2003 375ML) tonight. Better than any of the other 2003s I opened recently. That said... not sure it's my thing and not entirely confident it's going to ever be grand vin. It was smoking' good on release, though.

Notes:

2002 (750ML) vs 2003 Leoville Barton (375ML)

Color: The 2002 looks its age. No purple left but no bricking. The 2003 looks a good 4-5 years older. It is starting to show some bricking and has a lot more sediment.

Nose: The 2003 is non-descript on the nose and does not show the praline quality often apparent in 2003s. Touch of heat -- as much CdP as Northern Medoc on the nose. The 2002 has a much cooler-fruit profile and is more apparently Cabernet than the 2003. There's a little currant bush greenness and some violet. Comparatively feminine.

Palate: The 2003 is showing better than any of the recent 2003s I've opened. There is a roundness to the wine -- the tannins are more polished and the wine is richer than the others I recently tried. Not nearly as good as it was on release (I had a hard time keeping my hands off it when it came out) but it may just be in transition. I do have comparatively more hope for this one. The 2002 is a pleasant surprise. It's much more obviously a Left Bank Cabernet-driven wine. Someone recently compared this to the 1996 but I find this richer and with a better mid-palate than that wine. There's definitely some grip, but I like it. The fruit is hanging in there and I think this will offer some good drinking in a few years. Neither have a particularly long finish.

Conclusion: The 2003 on release was a lot more fun than the 2002 ever will be. I like the 2002 a good bit better today b/c it's more interesting on the nose and offers more of what I like about St. Julien. More than the other 2003s I tried recently, the LB seems like it might just be in a weird spot.

[DavidG]

Another 2003 Léoville Barton note, cross-posted from Nicolas' report on his birthday wines:

Nicklass wrote:
2003 Chateau Léoville Barton: a bit atypical but excellent. Nose was very open right from the start, with nice oak, integrated with ripe sweet blackcurrants, seductive rasberries, sweet vanilla and leather. In mouth, seductive, warm purple fruit, rich, sweet oak, perfumed finish. Medium tannins, became more meaty with time, bordering the over ripe limit, but stay in control Very very ripe Cabernet, missing some cool fruit. Tn: 92-93. Very atypical slightly warm Léo Barton. Don't know how long it will hold.

[marcs]

I've had multiple bottles of the 2003 LB over the past two years and it's a very good, indeed excellent, wine. Yes, it has a chocolatey component that is rather different than other years of LB so it would stand out in a vertical as somewhat "atypical". But it's not unbalanced and that "atypical" component is delicious. It has excellent midpalate depth and good balance and I would put a lot of money on the 2003 LB being significantly better than either the 2002 or 2004 LB in ten to fifteen years. When those also good but more delicate wines are on the downslope the 2003 will still be going strong. Indeed, one recent bottle drank young to me when I had it last year (still had some tannin to shed and shut down after a while in the glass).

Part of my difference in perspective here may be that I drink a lot of American/California wines, so I am intimately familiar with unbalanced, overripe, hot wines. The 2003 LB is nothing like that. It's unmistakably Bordeaux.

Not sure how much weight this carries with people, but on Cellartracker the 2003 is the third most highly rated Leoville Barton between 1961 and 2014, behind only 2009 and 2010. (I don't count 2015 and 2016 because there is huge bias in the very early ratings of a wine, dominated by initial vintage hype). I know Cellartracker is biased in a number of ways, but LB typically gets many hundreds of notes (almost 500 for the 2003), so I consider these comparisons to have at least some meaning.

In terms of other 2003s, I share some concern about crude and raspy tannins. I haven't checked in on the Pichon Baron in a while but it had this problem when I tasted it early on. On the other hand I have had many good bottles of the Branaire Ducru, although I actually haven't checked on that one in a while either.

[AKR]

Interesting comments on CellarTracker. I probably should look at that more.

I usually poke around there only if there is something obscure I'd interested in reading about.

[BordeauxNut]

With respect to CellarTracker -- it would be interesting to see someone do a correlation comparing Parker scores to CT scores for Bordeaux wines. I would guess that the correlation would be near-perfect. That either means Parker is a nearly perfect taster or the breadth of people who post notes on CT are heavily influenced by the scores of the wines. I would guess more of the latter than the former. I always find it interesting to see when notes start to diverge on CT from his scores (which you see some of with 2003) given the amount of influence he had in BDX.

Regarding the 2003 LB -- I don't know if it will again be better drinking than the 2002 or 2004 -- but, I plan on having fun finding out in the years to come. It's part of what makes wine so interesting....

[JimHow]

“With respect to CellarTracker -- it would be interesting to see someone do a correlation comparing Parker scores to CT scores for Bordeaux wines. I would guess that the correlation would be near-perfect.”

Amen, BordeauxNut, I’ve been saying that for years.
Cellartracker is an excellent website but there is definitely a Robert Parker herd mentality when it comes to tasting notes.

[DavidG]

Agree. I love CellarTracker but I don’t put much faith in average scores. Even after Parker and outside of Bordeaux, the scores all seem to be between 89 and 93. There are several possible reasons for that besides me-tooism, but I’m amazed at how often I’ll see a score in the 90s with a TN that excoriates the wine.

People think CT average scores are reliable because so many people are rating the wines. But there is a false sense of security there. The laws of big numbers don’t apply for several reasons:

1. Wine scores are not a single answer to a single question, like "What will the price of gold be in July?" or "Who will win the election?" or "How many jelly beans are in the jar?" Everyone has their own scale. My 88 points could be someone else's 93 points even if we both got identical enjoyment from the wine. I don’t think that the reliability of large auction-type polls/valuations has been confirmed for situations where there is no universally accepted rating scale.

2. Scorers can see what everyone else rated the wine, both critics and the general population of CT users. It’s not an individual rating uninfluenced by factors other than the individual's opinion. This may be a weak criticism since auction-type valuations on public topics also are subject to public opinion. But CT scoring isn’t an auction-type valuation on a potential future outcome. Instead...

3. Most scores are on wines people have already purchased, so there can be an element of confirmation bias pushing scores up. The effect might be equal for all wines, in which case all scores would be equally influenced. But the effect may be greater for more expensive wines.

[marcs]

IMO CT doesn't so much have a bias toward Parker scores as it has a bias toward big fruit. CT notes tend to give extra points for larger fruited wines, to the extent that you occasionally get comments like "I didn't enjoy this very much but wow it had a lot of stuffing 95 points". The highly rated LB wines fit that pattern. This looks like a critic bias since critics are also more generous with big fruit years.

To correct for this it is best to combine scores and comments. I don't put much stock in scores without comments and I carefully read comments. But with that said, CT scores and comments together are, properly interpreted, a very good answer to the question of whether people have enjoyed the wine when they drank it. I can almost always recognize the wine when I read the comments and combine them with my experience. I rely a lot on a careful reading of CT scores and comments when buying wines I haven't tried.

The great majority of the 2003 LB comments on CT confirm my experience with it -- richer and more opulent than other vintages of LB, more chocolate/coffee notes than you get in other years of LB which are more focused on cassis and mineral, but well balanced and not overdone. A wine that is still fairly young and somewhat tannic although it is described as more advanced than the 2000 or 2005. (I don't really think it is, I think the fruit is just providing a more flattering overlay to the tannins).

I still have my concerns about 2003 but not about this wine. My other "big" 2003 investments (4-5 bottles each remaining) are Leoville Poyferre, Cos d'Estournel, and Pichon Baron. Wish I had spent more time with the 03 Poyferre at the Saturday dinner to get a real check in on it. But I wish I had spent more time with a LOT of wines at that dinner, in fact I wish we had set aside like eight or ten hours for the dinner! The restaurant kicked us out too early.

[DavidG]

Marcus have you cracked a Cos yet? I have 2 bottles but haven't tried it yet.

[Comte Flaneur]

FWIW notes from the Leoville Barton vertical in 2014

http://www.bordeauxwineenthusiasts.com/ ... ton#p41594

In the note on the 2003 I noted Lilian B-S noted it might be a good accompaniment to Chinese food. I did not recount her extraordinary tirade against this wine, almost implying it was not worthy to be served next to the other wines. I could see where she was coming from. She did say it was atypical given the uniquely challenging conditions in 2003.

Leoville-Barton may have done better than many other estates in 2003, but the shortcomings of the vintage are painfully obvious.

[AKR]

Really nice 2003 Sociando Mallet last night, at age 20 it's going strong.

[Claudius2]

Arv
Next time I’m in the US, you gotta cook for me as I love Indian food yet Wendy won’t eat it. Oh well.

To answer the question I thought SOME 2003 Bordeaux were nice on release though the longer I kept them, the more the extremes of the vintage showed through. I was in Pauillac in August 2003 and it was 47C or 117F at Lafite. It was so hot, I thought my flesh was being roasted whenever I stepped outside. Even in October, it was about 30C in Italy and everyone was complaining about the rorrid weather.

I bought several cases of 03s on en primeur and sold off most as I thought they tasted like red blends from the irrigation areas in Australia which I could have bought any day for a few dollars a bottle.

I reviewed Pontet Canet several times and invariably it upset someone who probably had not even tried the wine. I thought Montrose was was the best of the wines I bought - maybe the heavier souls in St Estephe helped - but I ended up selling most of the vintage at auction before and after I relocated to Singapore.

For some time I wondered if I just did not like Pontet Canet after others defended it, but the 2010 was the best wine I tried at a big tasting last year, and I even bid on some at a recent auction but gave up.

Cheers
Mark

[Comte Flaneur]

Marcus wrote in 2018

“I would put a lot of money on the 2003 LB being significantly better than either the 2002 or 2004 LB in ten to fifteen years. When those also good but more delicate wines are on the downslope the 2003 will still be going strong.”

I would happily take the other side of that bet, now 15 has become ten.

We are planning to do a 2003 tasting soon. I am bringing Ducru which was drinking well aged 5-6 - I will try and persuade someone to bring a Leoville Barton.

I have been reliably informed that the best 2003 out there is Leoville Lascases, which actually makes quite a bit of sense.

[JimHow]

2003 Sociando Mallet has been very strong from the get go, I'm not surprised it is operating on all cylinders at age 20.

[stefan]

I agree that 2003 Sociando Mallet is still going strong. But my impression is that most of the 2003 were better five+ years ago than they are now.