Château Mouton Rothschild 2003

The 2003 harvest began on September 15 and finished ten days later. The result is an outstanding 2003 Mouton-Rothschild, but it is not one of the superstars of Pauillac or the Northern Médoc. Its nearby neighbors, Lafite-Rothschild, Cos d’Estournel and Montrose, all produced wines that qualitatively dominate this effort from Mouton-Rothschild. Nevertheless, there is a lot to like. The tannins, which were so tough initially, have softened somewhat, and the nose offers up notes of cedarwood, roasted coffee, tobacco leaf and red and blackcurrants. This spicy, earthy, fleshy, medium to full-bodied 2003 is not one of the stars of the vintage. It is close to full maturity, where it should remain for another 10-15 years.

Shows the heat of the vintage, as well as the slightly extracted feel of Dhalluin's predecessor, with a hint of jamminess to the mix of raspberry, plum and fig fruit, along with melted licorice, charred cedar and singed vanilla bean accents and a very light echo of caramel through the finish. Even with all that, there's a flash of minty freshness lurking throughout. There's lots here, but it's a bit atypical. -- Non-blind Mouton-Rothschild vertical (March 2017). Drink now through 2031. 23,330 cases made.

This has lots of phenolic character. Full-bodied and chewy with very ripe nuances. So much coffee and walnut character. A big and slightly overdone wine. Shows the extreme heat of the vintage. Drink now.

A heady, exotic wine, the 2003 Mouton Rothschild takes hold of all the senses. The ripeness and exuberance of the year comes through in spades as this dramatic, opulent wine shows off its radiant personality. The 2003 can be enjoyed now, but it could also use another few years for the tannins to soften. Still, the 2003 is pretty hard to resist today. This is an exceptional, deeply satisfying Mouton endowed with notable richness but also exceptional balance. Hints of toffee, torrefaction and dark spices are laced into the finish. In 2003 the blend is 76% Cabernet Sauvignon, 14% Merlot, 8% Cabernet Franc and 2% Petit Verdot, all brought in between a fairly narrow window of ten days between September 15 and 25.

Cigar box, jammy black raspberry, mint, ash, tobacco, cedar wood, cloves, cinnamon and wet forest floor notes start the fireworks. On the palate, the rich, sensuous, flamboyant, showy wine is a hedonistic treat for the senses from start to finish. The early harvest took place between September 15 and September 25. The wine was made from a blend of 76% Cabernet Sauvignon, 14% Merlot, 8% Cabernet Franc and 2% Petit Verdot.

04: Barrel sample: 76% Cabernet Sauvignon, 14% Merlot, 8% Cabernet Franc, 2% Petit Verdot. 94% new oak, 28 hl/ha, production approx. 240,000 bottles: Thick, heavy bouquet; plum note, blackcurrants, chocolate, a hint of dried thyme, few primary aromas, everything sits like lead in the lower perception range, only a generous sweetness is present and gives the nose a Rubens-like sweetness. On the palate again thick and compote-like, showing massive breed underneath, chestnut, coffee, black olives, After Eight on the finish, which feels nutty, with pralines and dried fruit. A warm, even hot Mouton with dramatic concentration and gigantic ageing potential. Despite its heft, this wine operates at a very high level, completely harmonious in its constellation and a blend between 1995 and 1959. This elephant Mouton is very close to 20/20 points. 06: Presented in Germany on the bay tour and in Vienna for Wein & Co. at the Coburg: Extremely dark garnet with black reflections. The bouquet is rich, an oversized Pomerol, showing sweet, jammy, almost liqueur-like cassis, lots of blackberries, black-currant and a creamy fullness, already on the nose a bombastic orgy reminiscent of the ’59 Mouton. On the palate Cabernet sweetness like an oenological dessert, so sweet, so chocolaty, studded with roasted almond notes, mouth-filling yet remaining elegant, black-berried on the finish with a wonderful perfumed coconut note, showing reserves for a good 40 years on the aftertaste. Can morph into a wine of the century! 08: Medium-dense garnet, ruby rim. Noble wood bouquet, classic terroir notes, smoke, suede notes, liquorice and even truffle. On the palate fairly thick on the outside, fleshy inside with bite, lots of tannins in support, a very cellar-worthy, patient wine. Perfect. Now close to the presumed level of an idiosyncratic wine of the century (19/20). 10: A Pauillac dessert of a special class. It will never become typical. So neither Mouton, nor Pauillac, nor Médoc nor Bordeaux. But when you take a sip, if possible from a Burgundy glass, the connoisseur couldn’t care less. 11: We meet regularly to play cards. Everyone brings “some wine”. Since the card game starts at 3 p.m. and only ends after dinner, we bring quite a lot of “some wine”. It can also happen that a wine is corked. As happened last time, when I smelled the most intense cork of my life. A kind of 20-point cork. One you could smell from half a metre away. Without even bringing it to your nose. But if you still held it under your nostrils and then pulled the exuding misery up strongly, it was so disgusting that both hemispheres of the brain cringed and almost triggered a gag reflex. A fault that you could almost have entered in the Guinness Book. What a bloody mega-cork! What a brutal, nasty bastard! A brutal scoundrel! If this off-flavour had been a person, you could have dragged him before the European Court and prosecuted him. For the first time I was so enraged that I could have kicked the bottle in the ass, if there had been one on the back of the bottle. So I had to look at the spiteful mug of this anti-pleasure culprit, or rather the label. It said vintage 2003 and above, in gold-black, flowing script: Château Mouton-Rothschild. I think you can understand my cork anger better now. 11: At lunch in Bordeaux with the very young Pétrus owner Jean Moueix (born 1985!). Peppery nose, a dry sweetness, first leather notes, currants. Compact with a piquant verve inside. Closing up again at the moment. (19/20). 11: The Grange ’88 was corked. What a bummer. We were already in the middle of dinner and the last wine lasted exactly to the end. A perfect soft landing in terms of quantity. I last drank the 2003 Mouton-Rothschild a month ago at a lunch with the young Pétrus owner Jean Moueix in Bordeaux. But I didn’t compare it to that experience; instead I recalled from memory the impressions of the Cos from the same year. Which one is potentially greater? Or must one first – for psychological reasons – put the price on the scales? Or simply wait another 10 or even 20 years to be able to make the comparison properly? The basic aromas are similar in both. Dried-fruity, plummy, profound with massive concentration. For the moment, the Cos still has a small bonus point more for me. After all, the Mouton tends to be more of a Bordeaux than the Cos – again with reference to the 2003 vintage. (19/20). 12: Medium-dark garnet. Extremely sweet, lots of caramel, roasted almonds, an opulent nasal fullness, further supported by lactic tendencies, cinnamon on sweet semolina, which shows its cereal note. Never has a Mouton been so opulent on the nose, not even the 1982 in its youth. The extremely full tendency is omnipresent on the palate too, and yet this gentle Pauillac monster manages to achieve balance. Something for narcotics officers, because you almost slip into transcendental enjoyment here. This magnum showed that we are dealing with an almost 20/20 wine. But it has no chance of becoming a classic, unless you also consider the 1947 Mouton a classic. A boat owner present was moved to slightly expletive raptures by this magnum: «De huere Wy isch so affegeil – s’Bescht wo’s bis jetz gäh het!» (19/20). 13: Blood red, dense core. The bouquet begins, as a great young Mouton begins, with glutamate, bouillon and lots of cassis and ripe plums, only here, due to the great heat, there are also raisins and the usual Mouton sweetness almost overflows. Thus the nose appears almost vulgar. On the palate an overwhelming, fat thing that just about manages to keep its balance, in the aftertaste then lots of creamy Cabernet and, surprisingly, a lot of potential with sufficient terroir notes. Its drinking window will be very long and at some point it will probably taste like a Mouton blend of 1947 and 1959. (19/20). 14: Discreetly lightening garnet, some rim on the outside. Hellish bouquet, with lots of candied fruit, redcurrant, traces of honey, figs, candy-like to jammy fruit, beguiling and intoxicating. On the palate dense with enormous sweet concentration, Quality Street candies, i.e. fruit purée and pralines, a hint of raspberry yoghurt, creamy, opulent finish. Pure erotica, almost in excess. You could actually serve it in an oversized Burgundy glass. (19/20). 15: Medium-dark wine-red, dark core. Stunning bouquet, even if at the moment it smells more like Tempranillo, respectively Ribera del Duero in its fundamentals, very expansive, sandalwood and mid-dark caramel. On the palate it is full, creamy and endowed with a dreamlike density, the astringency shows a lot of harmony. It is gallant from A to Z and will probably one day resemble its own 1959. (19/20). 16: Sweet, plums, coconut, pralines, somehow it smells like a near-raunchy Pomerol. (19/20). 16: That was the last bottle of a series of eight. And there were four of us. Now where did my pen go… (19/20). 18: Still very dark garnet with a dense core. Malty-chocolatey bouquet, appearing plummy and expansive. It clearly shows on the nose the hot notes of the vintage. Only on the second approach do somewhat fresher Cabernet traces and tones of dried kitchen herbs join in the background. On the palate it drinks like a liquid Pauillac praline, creamy, opulent and soft in flow. The Mouton erotica is there, but the vintage has stolen a fairly large part of its typicity. A kind of blend of 1947 and 1959, which nonetheless declares its high level. (19/20). 21: Violet-black. The first nasal contact somehow already belongs in the narcotics squad. Or, crudely, one could choose between “sexy” and “raunchy”. Sorry, but in this form you normally never experience a Mouton. The bouquet: coffee, plums, pralines, coconut flakes and vanilla seeds without end, very expansive and extremely full. On the palate it continues exactly the same way, between opulent and stocky in any case, a wine cream with aromas of Cabernet liqueur. Of everything one might want, almost too much. Time in further élevage will probably slim it down a bit. It urgently needs that. I don’t want to punish it. But one glass is enough for me for the moment. (19/20).

Wonderfully silky texture, great poise, with oak that’s just a touch showy for now given the type of wood used since.

This is last week’s score versus 16 last June, and 18 and 16.5 in 2010. The 3 bottles were taken from the same case, so there are variations from one bottle to another. Color barely evolved. Fruity, smoky, creamy nose. Rich on the attack, perfumed mid-palate, juicy; this wine doesn’t lose its richness, keeps its body, and finishes long with flavor and fine tannins, without the dryness that marks the vintage. Surprising.

This wine is dominated by new wood, which goes right through the big, dark fruit flavors and tannins. Very ripe cassis flavors are under this wood, waiting likely for many years before the wood flavors subside. This is very much in the modern, polished style of Mouton today, made even more pronounced by the heat of the 2003 vintage. Imported by Diageo Chateau & Estates.