Bordeaux Wine Enthusiasts

03 Kirwan [Margaux] Chilled, and allowed to breathe for a couple of hours. With sauteed chicken in a mustard & caper sauce, broccoli, and salt/oil rubbed baked potatoes. Food combo sounds odd, but paired really well. This was a PC sourced bottle, which probably didn't arrive til 2006 or something. 13% abv on the label and in summary: it was excellent. It's been a long time since I can positively recall a Kirwan, beyond tannic ones in my youth, but the SO says we've had them more recently. Great bouquet of red fruit, currants, a woman's floral perfume, cedar. I wonder if this is what Stefan would characterize as Margauxberries. Texturally this is ready to go -- no crass tannins and light acidity. I don't actually worry about this aging, even though its great right now, I bet it holds well. Curiously there is almost no sediment or particulates. Not in the glass, nor the bottle. Maybe it was filtered? I also don't detect any oak at this point. It seems to have integrated well, and the wine has developed magnificently. Sometimes I hear Kirwan is a masculine, atypical Margaux -- I only have it rarely -- but my impression is more that this is a fleshy, feminine wine. Nice finish that goes on for 30 seconds. I sealed up the rest in a half bottle without any air and will see how that is in a day or two. But this is really impressive; 2003 was not a year that I thought favored Margaux. I'd give this a big A- grade. It could be better but it's hard to calibrate to the truly rare A grade wines.

Another nice 2003! This vintage seems to have turned out better than the experts predicted.

Arv, if it smells like a Margaux, then that is what it is.

The 03 Kirwan was easily the class of a blind 03 horizontal in 2010 or so. No big names in the tasting, but there were 8-10 wines and most showed really poorly that night. The kirwan was delicious and didn't show the heat the way most of the other wines did.

What's also odd about this bottle is that it hasn't really been at cellar temps for the last ten years.

It was a fluke that got delivered to my mom's house by accident, in a PC glitch.

She put it in a cedar coat closet, where it sat around for a couple of years.

Then I remembered it was there, retrieved it, but never put it in underground storage, since it missed the obvious times I do that when there is a pile of stuff to go in there.

And for part of that time I wasn't even living in CA.

So, unusually, its been at probably 66F-72F for the last decade.

Perhaps its 5+ years more evolved because of that.

I'll finish the rest tomorrow.

Interesting. Then it would be ten years further evolved than your "average" Bdx because 2003 was born already at least five years old. IMHO.

The only Margaux I have from 2003 is the Tour de Mons and that's drinking quite well, quite together, with the ripe fruit of the vintage but rock-solid structure and balance.

Yes, I thought it was mature. We'll see how well it keeps, rest of the bottle is slated for tomorrow.

I cannot remember who but someone was comparing the ripe 03's to some vintage from the 50's which also kept far longer than people expected.

Unlike the 76's which apparently lost their legs very early, also a hot year, but unbalanced with no acidity. (That is from hearsay, I've only had a handful of those, as they did not seem to survive into the era when I began purchasing fine wine from 1995 onwards.)

I finished the rest of the bottle, which had been put in a half bottle.

48 hours has only made it better.

This has many attributes of a solid A grade wine.

Very surprising.

stefan wrote:Another nice 2003! This vintage seems to have turned out better than the experts predicted.

Arv, if it smells like a Margaux, then that is what it is.

Stefan,
not tried the 03 Kirwan (and to be honest its not a wine I see very often at all) but I have to admit to being totally confused by 03.
Yet I love the wines of Margaux, with a distinct berry and violet character.
I have had some very nice 03 wines such as Montrose and Lafite (at hi prices) but most of the middle ranking wines and even some well renowned labels have to my palate tasted like a red from the central valley, southern Italy or some of Australia's hot irrigation areas.
I was in France during the vintage, and even in late Sept it was about 90 degrees.
I was in Italy in early Sept and it was 100 degrees even then.
I am amazed that the vines produced anything but dried out, roasted grapes more suitable for Amarone than Bordeaux.
Having said that, I have really tried hard not to be negative and overly critical.
I have read lots of positive notes about numerous wines but whenever I try them, I taste a burnt, hot, disjoint wine that to my palate should sell for two bucks at the local supermarket.
I sometimes think I must be getting old or something, but I grew up on Bordeaux that had cool, well balanced fruit, not something that tastes like boiled candy with prickly, harsh tannins.

I am still haunted by the aromatics of the '03 d'issan tasted 3years back with Orlando Bobby. It's very difficult to beat the scent of a great Margaux....stunning!