The 2003 Vintage: Other Regions
Continuing with my report on recently tasted wines from the 2003 vintage, I look now to other parts of France and beyond. Here, south of the Loire, many regions seemed to struggle with the heat, and although there were one or two successes I feel that many wines show this canicule character quite plainly, either through very low acidity – more obvious in the white wines than in the red – as well as robust tannic backbones, lack of fruit freshness and indeed overt over-ripeness in some wines.
For some reason I ended up with a few bottles of Burgundy in the cellar; the only white was the 2003 Meursault Les Tillets from Patrick Javillier which had rather tropical fruit character and a soft, low-acid feel to it. Among the reds, the 2003 Pommard Premier Cru Clos Micault from Albert Bichot had the typical warm and robust character of the vintage. Among the other wines, however, there were some relative successes; the rather lowly 2003 Chorey-lès-Beaune Piece du Chapitre from Tollot-Beaut seemed bright and defined, and tasting blind I’m not sure I would have pegged this as a 2003, not straight away at least. Likewise the 2003 Gevrey-Chambertin Premier Cru Les Corbeaux Vieilles Vignes from Denis Bachelet, although dark and concentrated, was also nicely defined. The 2003 Corton-Bressandes from Domaine Chandon de Briailles did have a little of the gamey fruit of the vintage, lacking freshness, yet despite that it didn’t have the rather blocky, solid character that can blight the 2003 vintage. There was still plenty of primary character, as there was in the two wines from François Lamarche, the 2003 Clos de Vougeot and the 2003 Echézeaux. In themselves these were wines of some appeal, with deep texture and substance; the problems for me was that with their roasted fruit character, the deep, plush textures, and rather warm and broad characters I found myself, on tasting them, thinking more of the Rhône Valley than of the slopes of the Côte d’Or.
Appropriately my next stop was the Rhône proper, with two examples of Châteauneuf du Pape, from Domaine du Vieux Télégraphe and Château de Beaucastel. These were extreme versions of the appellation, gone far beyond what the Burgundies above could pretend to be. The fruit character on the first was a mix of raisins and meat stock, lacking any freshness at all. The latter is also leaning this way and tasting these wines only confirmed my dislike of the wines of this appellation these days. The extremes of the vintage has had some influence here, obviously, but too often I find the wines of this appellation to be overdone.
Moving along, the 2003 Minervois Cuvée Sylla from Domaine Borie de Maurel had a curiously warm, rather Port-like character, dusted with brown sugar; as a fortified wine stand-in it would have done a good job, as a table wine it was less appealing. From Roussillon, the 2003 Côtes du Roussillon from Domaine de Nidolères did not show well, and the 2003 Bandol from Domaine Tempier showed some warmer features associated with the vintage, but these were not sufficiently distracting to spoil the wine. The only real success here was right across in the south-west, where the 2003 Jurançon Noblesse du Temps from Domaine Cauhapé showed a very rich, evolved character, with some balance coming from the very phenolic feel of the palate. This will be all passerillage rather than botrytis, and the acidity is not prominent; but in this one case, thanks to the bitter grip within the wine, it seems to work. From the same domaine the 2003 Jurançon Symphonie de Novembre did not work so well; the palate held some great flavours but the balance was lacking. And the 2003 Jurançon Ballet d’Octobre faired a little better, perhaps because of the earlier picking, because it seemed to hold a little more acidity and freshness. In such an unusual vintage, later picking didn’t always produce the better wine, it seems.
