WTN: Bordeaux 2003 dinner

Short notes from last night's Bordeaux 2003 dinner at Lemuria. This was supposed to be a tasting of 10 wines to be followed by dinner with two others but was finally simplified to a dinner of 5 reds and a Sauternes. Except for the Rieussec and Camensac, the wines were decanted at least an hour before dinner.

Chateau Camensac 2003 - Very dark. Cedary. Sweet fruit. Rich. Dried herbs, tobacco. Slight heat. Medium length. Tannic. Very good.

Chateau Talbot 2003 - Lots of sweet fruit on the nose. Deep flavor. Very dry, smooth, silky. Balanced. Decanted about 1 hour 30 minutes. Very good +

Chateau Lagrange 2003 - Sweet fruit. Tannic. Long. Medium-bodied. Firm, rich, chocolatey, cocoa finish. Decanted about 2 hours. Excellent.

Clos du Marquis 2003 - Beautiful, exotic nose of baking spices, espresso, cocoa, flowers. Excellent balance. Seamless. Refined. Soft after a 2.5 hours decanting. Virtually perfect! Great stuff.

Chateau Pichon-Longueville 2003 - Very dark. Menthol, cocoa. Rich, full, powerful wine. Very deep flavor. some prune and slightly overripe fruit. Lots of fruit. Very nearly New World but just short of it. Despite nearly 3 hours decanting, still not quite ready. Has the stuffing to be a great wine. Try again in 3 years. Outstanding.

Half the party thought the Lagrange was showing best while the other half thought that Clos du Marquis showed better. I thought the Clos du Marquis was a tremendous wine and given enough decanting time, is a pretty good drink now. I do believe, however, that the Pichon has great potential but patience is required.

Lastly, we had:

Chateau Rieussec 2003 - Pineapple, honey, burnt sugar, candied citrus peel, peach, marmalade. Very long, rich. Excellent and good to drink now but could gain complexity with age.

We finished the evening with some Macallan 18 year Fine Oak and Macallan 1851.

Hi Jay, Who is distributing the 2003 Clos du Marquis locally? Do you know the retail price?

Dennis,

I'll text you details on the Clos.

Jay

Good tasting, Jay. Thanks for the notes.

I loved the 2003 Pichon Baron during a 2003 vertical here about 2 years ago. It was liked by the majority, then. I'll be holding on, for a long while, to the few that I have stored.

I remember that the Lagrange was controversial and the tasters, then, were divided on its merits. I was in the positive camp and have purchased and stored a few.

Cheers.

Hi Mon,

I first tried the Pichon-Baron at Vinexpo 2 years ago. I thought it was good but nothing special. It's certainly a dramatic improvement for me.

No question about the quality of Lagrange. I didn't expect the Clos to perform quite so impressively, though.

Jay,

I've not had the 2003 Clos du Marquis. Based on your tasting results, and given that the local pricing on this one has not gone up relatively much from its release price as it may have possibly flown under the Parker radar, I'll try and source a bottle to taste.

Mon,

I think Clos du Marquis got a respectable 90 or 91 from Parker. Just remember, we decanted for a bit over 2 hours. I would be very interested to know your take on this wine.

Cheers,

Jay

Interesting. I am a big Lagrange fan, buy almost every vintage, but I really didn't care for the 2003. Different tastes, or couple years of bottle age. I'd like to retry, but will wait till someone else pours.

'03 P-Baron was one of my favorites of the vintage along with the Leo-Barton (I haven't had any firsts).