2003 Pontet Canet

[DavidG]

Not a TN, but a reference to a thread over on that not-to-be-mentioned BB (http://erobertparker.com/bboard/showthread.php?t=241511), in which the '03 Pontet Canet is getting a lot of love. For those who recall, a certain Jimmy LB How was the first to tout this wine. He was relentless, driving me to buy a whole case of the stuff (almost unheard of!). A couple bottles shortly after release were magically wonderful, then the wine seemed to shut down hard a few years ago. According to multiple posters "over there," it is firing on all cylinders again. One poster even puts in league with the '89 Lynch Bages!

I am tempted to open one of my remaining 9 bottles, but I am pretty sure it is going to have even more going on in another 5-10 years. Anyone here pop one recently?

[RDD]

We opened a 2003 Leoville Barton the other week. It was luscious with a lot of future promise.
No stewed fruit or pruney flavors.
I didn't buy a wide range but bought deep on a few selected estates.

[JimHow]

I will probably hold my case of 750s and my 3L of 2003 Pontet until the twenty year mark. We had a 2003 Leoville Barton with blanquito a couple years ago and I thought it was stellar. I think those 2003 northern Medocs are going to be prodigious at the twenty year mark.

[finner]

Had a 2003 Duhart Milon this weekend. I realize this was also a Parker darling, but I found it to be fairly hot and soupy, but with a decent nose. Seemed to be in a decent drinking window too. Will it be better in 20 years? I certainly hope so, but I'm not holding out hope.

[DavidG]

Yes the '03s appear to be variable with respect to the burnt/roasted thing. It sounds like there were a good number of excellent N. Medoc properties that avoided this and produced outstanding wines. Pontet Canet appears to be one of them. I bought selectively based on RP and other reports - time will tell how many are winners and how many are not.

If Jim (Baby-Killer) How can wait till the 20-year mark to drink his '03 PC, that's encouragement enough for me to keep hands off!

[JonB]

At the BD's enablement I have 4.5 cases of PC, and will try to dig out some before fall shipment season lest they get further buried. More recent vintages if PC are consistently strong.

[Blanquito]

I don't think most 2003s are in a good place right now. I put on a mid-level 2003 tasting last year after reading one tasting note after another on eBob on how 'awesome' many 2003s were drinking (to be fair, many of the notes were written by one sycophantic douche bag who loves everything Parker and uses a wine forum to spout right-wing propaganda). The 10 2003s I opened were either not ready (these were the promising wines with some good structure and other hallmarks of good claret) or really garish. Of course, the garish ones might get worse but given how bad they already are, there's nothing to lose seeing if they pull together with more cellar time. So bottom line, I wouldn't expect the 2003 PC to be ready to go yet (though if I had 4.5 cases of it!!!, I'd definitely give one a test drive ITNOS). Too bad about the Duhart Milon, that was one of my favorite 2003s on release, but I sold most of it after the price jumped 4 or 5X.

It's always crazy to hear about the low wine prices from 'back in the day'. But then I check and see that I paid $44 for the 2003 PC at PJ's after Parker's in-bottle 95 pt score came out (though I did make my order the same day the scores came out). What does PC cost now with 95 Parker points, well over $100 right? Crazy.

[Harry C.]

From a posted tasting note from January 2012: 1/21/2012 rated 92 points: Deep garnet. Nose was young Bordeaux, rich, hints of oak, black fruits. Taste was more muted, slightly thin on the midpalate, young. Popped and poured, perhaps decanting would help. Let sleep another few years. PS-it did not impress me as out of balance.

[Ramon_NYC]

Good to see from Blanquito's response that's in line with my narrow-minded palate about how these 2003s are in a closed phase at this stage. Btw, probably the same as your douchebag who posted one 2003 after another every 2 months in the other boards, but each time I see post by douchebarf, he claims how open and approachable his bottle was.

[Blanquito]

Good to see from Blanquito's response that's in line with my narrow-minded palate about how these 2003s are in a closed phase at this stage. Btw, probably the same as your douchebag who posted one 2003 after another every 2 months in the other boards, but each time I see post by douchebarf, he claims how open and approachable his bottle was.

Yeah, pretty hard to take seriously (yet somehow, still annoying on so many levels)... glad my eBob subscription lapsed over a year ago...

[Ramon_NYC]

Yeah, pretty hard to take seriously (yet somehow, still annoying on so many levels)... glad my eBob subscription lapsed over a year ago...

I've never subscribed. Just my good fortune that they made the site a paid site and I willingly was forced out of the circus.

[DavidG]

There are a few people over there who fit the sycophant description. I'm trying to figure out which one is spouting right-wing propaganda...

[Blanquito]

There are a few people over there who fit the sycophant description. I'm trying to figure out which one is spouting right-wing propaganda...

He laid off the political commentary after Squires rebuked him and kept deleting his posts, but I saw a few at least before deletion (things about birth certificates, international climate science conspiracies, etc.)...

[DavidG]

I probably don't pay close enough attention over there to have noticed those before their deletion.

[robertgoulet]

Tasted 03 pontet one year after release, a completely dumb bottle, very discouraging...I have two more

[Claudius2]

Guys
I've written several notes now on this wine and am sure I'll stir up another hornet's nest.
Your view of 2003 will be affected by your expectations.
If you want a cool, classical, complex and intellectual wine, forget it.
Noting how much many board members like 1996 Medocs (and I do too) - the 03 PC is the antithesis of that style.
I have now drunk 5 bottles and the surprising feature is that they all tasted different - okay a common theme but some were distinctly better than others.
I bought 2 cases on indent thus have many to go and this is now the only 03 I have left as I sold the rest at auction.
Prices were good as clearly some like the style better than me.

The first sniff of the wine has consistently revealed ripe, sweet fruit, with plums, cassis and brambly fruit, plus smoke and tobacco.
When you first sip it, it actually tastes pretty good. Ripe without overt sweetness, not too heavy, not overtly burnt.
So it isn't one of those horribly burnt or roasted 2003s with the dry, rasping tannins that proliferate in some areas.

So what it the problem here??
Well, the wine to me still has a coarse aftertaste that is more obvious as you drink it.
The 96s to me were such nice Medoc wines as the after taste was long, cool, silky, refreshing, beggging to be drunk.
TRhe 03 PC has a lot of good fruit in the middle palate, but it falls away to reveal a harsh, slightly dry nut/tobacco aftertaste that starts off okay and seems to become less interesting and tryng as you sip it.

A good example was the 01/02/03 mini vertical I organised last yr.
The 02 was everyone's fav. And it wasn't close.
It showed length, poise, balance, cool, refreshing fruit and a long but gentle after taste.
The 01 was good but the fruit was a little lacking in expression, a slight tarry character, and a slightly hollow middle palate.
Better with food but a category below the 02.
The 03 was an assault on the palate after the 01 and 03, and showed the vintage diferences in bold style.
It simply isn't a finesse wine and the burnt and dry tannins and coarser back plate were more evident in comparision.
Yet it does have more fruit in the middle and is a bigger wine without overt heaviness.

So guys, why not rouse up several PC vintages and try it again.
The 96 is now showing well and the 2000 is very good also - maybe not as good as it could have been.
04 is also very good - more in the 02 style and I have tried the 06 once which was also very good in a rounder style compared to 04 or 02.
Not tired the 05 or 09 but would like to!

cheers
Mark

[DavidG]

Your points are well-taken, Mark. I liked the '03 young. It went into a dumb stage, and though I haven't had it again recently, others seem to feel it's coming out of its shell. I would have thought another 5-10 years would be necessary for it to start showing well again.

[Blanquito]

If nothing else, the 2003s will provide for some interesting tastings over the next 10-15 years. I mean, wouldn't be something if many 2003 - which can show garish, awkward and boozy these days, but not shut down in any typical way - come around and morph into something like the 82s and 90s, or perhaps more apropos, Iike the legendary "port-like" '47's?

And if they don't, and instead fall apart into messy high-alcohol yet greenish wines, well then we can all pat ourselves on the back for how sage we were to have been dubious all along.

Oops, now I'm making vintage generalizations. The wines will probably never be as good or bad as our hopes and fears make them, and the quality will all be chateau-to-chateau (or even bottle-to-bottle)... how boring that would be.

[AlexR]

>>> Oops, now I'm making vintage generalizations.

Forty lashes of the whip.

Alex R.

[JimHow]

I still insist 2003 Pontet Canet is going to be immense and long lived. I just think it needs to be held for another ten years.

[marcs]

The first sniff of the wine has consistently revealed ripe, sweet fruit, with plums, cassis and brambly fruit, plus smoke and tobacco.
When you first sip it, it actually tastes pretty good. Ripe without overt sweetness, not too heavy, not overtly burnt.
So it isn't one of those horribly burnt or roasted 2003s with the dry, rasping tannins that proliferate in some areas.

So what it the problem here??
Well, the wine to me still has a coarse aftertaste that is more obvious as you drink it.
The 96s to me were such nice Medoc wines as the after taste was long, cool, silky, refreshing, beggging to be drunk.
TRhe 03 PC has a lot of good fruit in the middle palate, but it falls away to reveal a harsh, slightly dry nut/tobacco aftertaste that starts off okay and seems to become less interesting and tryng as you sip it.


cheers
Mark

This is the single best take on the 03s I have seen. It is much more accurate than the 2003 great/2003 awful argument which is overly simplistic. I had exactly the same rich midpalate / bad 'aftertaste' experience with I think the Pichon Baron (possibly the Leoville Barton as well, can't remember now).

I did not however have it with the Leoville Poyferre, which I think is just a great wine on all cylinders.

[Jeff Leve]

I really like 2003 Pontet Canet. It's the first vintage where Tesseron started kicking things up to a new level of quality. You can read my notes here: http://www.thewinecellarinsider.com/?page_id=295

As for people finding 2003 Bordeaux closed in, I've been tasting a lot of those wines lately and have not found the wines to be closed at all. Many are drinking very well at the moment, at least IMO. Your mileage could vary.

[Claudius2]

Guys
My take is that the 03 PC will change over the next decade, and show the rich middle palate and warm fruit, but I am not convinced the end palate will change much.
I loved this wine when tried young - which is why I bought 2 cases!!!

What does worry me is that I cannot see a developmental process that gives me a window for the future.
The middle palate was certainly better n the last bottle I tried, but I still can;t get over the rather coarse, dry finish of the wine.

That end palate remionded me of Australian cab based wines that are either heat affected or produced in bushfire yrs where the wines shut down or the tannins are dried out as a result.
A comparison is 2001 in some regions in SA. Burning hot, many vines shut down completely during the growing season and some recovered, some did not. This led to some wines with sweet rich fruit but rather ugly tannins and a slightly rasping finish.
My point is that 2003 is an exceptional vintage that is very trying for winemakers and very diffiuclt to get right.
When it is a downright heatwave vintage (aand beleive me, it was - I was in Europe at the time and it was burning hot - 50 degrees celsius) you must expect the wines to reflect abnormal and very trying conditions.
The soils in the northern and central medoc seemed to cope better and made some good wines but just don;t ever expect them to be typical Bordeaux.

[AlexR]

Claudius,

You have 2 cases of the wine, and are probably more entitled to comment on this wine than anyone else on the thread.
I nevertheless wonder: might not the shipping/storage play a factor here?
Pehaps not, but I'm just asking myself...

Hey, make it over to Bordeaux and I'll pop a bottle for you and we'll compare notes!

All the best,
Alex R.

[Claudius2]

Alex
Both cases were indent stock and have been in refrigerated storage ever since.
No sign of damage to any.
I think the wine tastes quite different in a line up than on its own.
The mini-vertical ended up showing the differences between the wines I think more so than their absolute quality.

The end palate issue I refer to has been a common finding on my part across numerous 03s including some highly reputed estates.
So maybe I'm more sensitive to it than others.
Though there is no denying that the front and middle paalte are very nice.
if the end plate softens out it will be a much better overall package.

[Claudius2]

Alex
One last point.
The last bottle tasted great to TASTE but the end palate became more evidnet with drinking.
So if you try it again, don;t evaluate it over one or two sips.

[DavidG]

Mark, your last point is a great one! Tasting and drinking are VERY different experiences for most people. Characteristics that may make a great initial impression can turn negative with repeated exposure. There's a fair amount of published research on this, including I think some Coke vs Pepsi blind tests where single sip results were different from those obtained after drinking a whole bottle.

[Houndsong]

I had another 2003 Ch. Bourgneuf last night. I have already reported on this favorably and last night's bottle was all the more. Plush and plump yet mellow and tender and no bitter or detracting aftertaste whatsoever. Drinking perfectly right now, it made a strong pitch for inclusion in the Island 24.

[AlexR]

I visited Bourgneuf last week and tasted their 2007 and 8.
This is an up and coming estate.
I bought 6 bottles of their 2010.

Alex R.