Pauillac · vintage 2003
Why this vintage
- 94/100 from Wine Advocateand 1 other score above 90/100.
- The 2003 vintage in PauillacThe 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.
Critic scores
- Wine Advocate94
- James Suckling93
The 2003 vintage in Pauillac
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 Pauillac. 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
Beautiful wine with a deep ruby red and a beautiful aromatic expression with notes of fresh fruit and black fruit. Beautiful structure, remarkable elegance and balance, very fine and supple tannins for a long fruity finish. A great success with this rather atypical vintage.
Blend of the 2003 vintage
- 73 % Cabernet-sauvignon
- 27 % Merlot
Shares for this vintage, as recorded on the 2003 technical sheet. The vineyard itself is planted with cabernet sauvignon, merlot, cabernet franc, sauvignon blanc, sauvignon gris, sémillon — a vintage blend departs from the area under vine as the year dictates.
Figures from the 2003 sheet
- 13 % vol.Alcohol
- 30 yrsVine age
- 260,000 bottlesProduction
Winemaking
After destemming and light crushing, the vatting of Duhart-Milon lasts 28 days. The winemaking, entirely traditional, is carried out with great care by the team of Charles Chevallier, the Director of Château Lafite.
Ageing
12-14 months at 50% new oak and 50% 1st year Lafite barrels.
Terroir
The vineyard of Château Duhart-Milon lies almost as a single block on the western side of Château Lafite Rothschild, on the Milon slope that extends the Carruades plateau of Lafite. The Château Duhart-Milon estate comprises 76 ha of vines. The soils are fine gravels mixed with aeolian sands over a subsoil of Tertiary limestone. Strict control of yields, hand harvesting and a great deal of work carried out by hand throughout the year.
An offer on Château Duhart-Milon 2003
Availability, allocations and terms: the Compagnie Médocaine will reply promptly. The estate and vintage are already filled in in the message.
Texts and documents 2003
The texts below copy in one click for your product sheets, catalogues and social channels. The printable sheet condenses the whole page onto a single A4 page.
Visuals
For this vintage, the media library contains: packshots, labels. High-definition packshots, labels, back labels and lifestyle photos are reserved for clients and partners, on the Compagnie Médocaine’s VinCod media library.
Sheet checked on September 21, 2026. Technical data: the estate’s VinCod sheets. Critic scores: sources cited above, with their date. Vintage benchmarks and character: Compagnie Médocaine’s own editorial read. Soils and relief, where shown: the Compagnie Médocaine’s parcel survey and the Mapbox/IGN terrain model.