Château Petit-Village 2003

The 2003 vintage in Pomerol

Vintage benchmark: 87/100 (appellation benchmark, not a score for this wine)

Vintage character: The heatwave pushed the merlots into overripeness: rich, jammy wines, fresher on the clays of Pomerol.

Overall reading of the year’s season across Pomerol. 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

A sun-drenched, extraordinary vintage. A decidedly powerful wine. The nose is complex and marked by very ripe fruit and prune. The palate is tannic, with fine length.

Blend of the 2003 vintage

Figures from the 2003 sheet

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

Winemaking

Follows the meticulous work of vinification, plot by plot, for 25 days, in thermo-regulated vats which offer the possibility of personalized treatment.

Ageing

After the malolactic fermentation stage, all of the wines benefit from well-controlled ageing in oak barrels for approximately 15 months.

Terroir

Château Le Petit-Village lies at the heart of Pomerol, on a magnificent clay-gravel plateau. It is a single-block vineyard of 10.5 hectares forming a triangle. Its terroir is composed of deep gravels coated with light sandy clays over a subsoil of alios known as crasse de fer, characteristic of the great wines of Pomerol. Every terroir has a grape variety that remains true to it. At Château Petit-Village, each plot, with its own personality, is planted with the variety suited to it. Merlot predominates on the property (75%): it provides the flesh of the wine and gives it its velvety texture, its roundness and its generosity. To this are added Cabernet Franc (18%) and Cabernet Sauvignon (7%), varieties essential for structure and complexity.