This is amazing for the vintage. Full and silky, with velvety tannins. Long and rich, with a bright fruit character -- think black figs. The Cabernet Sauvignon gets to 35% of the blend in this vintage. This is delicious now, but it will be much better in five years. Pull the cork in 2015.James Suckling | 94 JSThis has a roasted, grippy-edged feel, with plum skin and licorice root notes framing the core of blackberry, fig and black currant confiture flavors. A touch chewy, but a strong tobacco accent lends this a hint of freshness. Shows the teetering balancing act of the vintage.—Blind '01/'03/'05 Bordeaux retrospective (December 2017). Drink now through 2032. 8,333 cases made.Wine Spectator | 93 WSThe famously hot vintage, and a wine I have been lucky enough to try many times. It is still holding up, showing deeply spiced and exotic notes - more furniture polish and dried herbs than in many vintages, but strangely sexy because of it. The relatively low alcohol suggests impact of the Cabernets as well perhaps as some blocking because of the heat, but this is a great wine for drinking today, full of generosity and pleasure. Drinking Window 2017 - 2030Decanter | 92 DEC(Château Figeac (St. Émilion)) I have only tasted the 2003 vintage at Figeac on a single occasion, which was as part of a vertical back at the property on one of my last trips to the region to taste en primeur. While the note is a bit out of date now, I was quite favorably impressed with the wine and include the note here, as I have never written this wine up previously. The bouquet back in the spring of 2012 was really quite good, offering up a deep and fairly exotic blend of mint, sappy black cherries, dark plum, singed tobacco, chocolate and nutty new oak. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied and quite plush on the attack, with very low acids, a very good, sappy core and a long, slightly chewy and quite smoky finish. There is a slightly dry edge to the tannins here that will probably always be part of the equation to some extent (as is the case with many 2003 Burgundies for instance), but this is a very good example of the vintage and one of the few 2003 clarets that I would be happy to drink any time. It was still a few years away from really drinking well back in March of 2012, but should be softened up nicely by now. (Drink between 2018-2040)John Gilman | 91 JG
