Château Cantemerle 2003

The 2003 vintage in Haut-Médoc

Vintage benchmark: 88/100 (appellation benchmark, not a score for this wine)

Vintage character: The historic heatwave halted ripening in young vines: very ripe, low-acid wines, at their best in Saint-Estèphe, where the clays held on to freshness.

Overall reading of the year’s season across Haut-Médoc. An estate can depart from it sharply, in frost or hail years, where two neighbours did not make the same vintage. What this particular wine actually gave is on its technical sheet and in the scores above.

Tasting

It was the year of the heatwave, and we do not find in this lively and clean wine the disadvantages of overripe grapes. The aromas of leather and prune are very present, but the structure does not reveal any softness, and confuses the traps of this scalded vintage. With graceful tannins and real volume on the palate, this perfectly ready-to-drink wine will dance with a grilled mutton chop.

Blend of the 2003 vintage

Figures from the 2003 sheet

• 13 % vol.Alcohol
• 30 yrsVine age
• 400,000 bottlesProduction

Winemaking

The production of each plot is vinified separately in large oak vats favoring a slow and gentle extraction of tannins.

Ageing

The wines are then aged in barrels for twelve months, then lightly clarified before being bottled at the château.

Terroir

The soil at Cantemerle is siliceous gravel. This gravel, the product of the ancient erosion of the Pyrenees by the Garonne, is one of the essential elements of a quality terroir. It makes for poor soils, and the vine must struggle if it is to produce concentrated grapes. These soils of sand and pebbles are also very free-draining and play an active part in ripening the grapes, since they reflect the sun's rays and retain at night the heat accumulated during the day. As they age, the vines send their roots deeper into the soil and express more fully the typicity of the terroir that carries them.