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Tasting Notes
Popped, and poured, the stunner gifted the perfume with dried flowers, blackberries, cherries, tobacco leaf, smoke, and cedar. With a single sip, the palate stole the show with its elegant, silky, velvety mouth-feel. The fruit comes in layers that gently coat your senses. Fully mature, this is a stunning example of what great, aged Bordeaux is all about.
Critic Scores
Average Score
William Kelley, Wine Advocate
Neal Martin, Vinous
More reviews and scores
The 1983 Chateau Margaux is deep brick-colored. It waltzes out of the glass with an evocative perfume of plum preserves, kirsch, and blackcurrant jelly, giving way to suggestions of rose oil, licorice, and charcoal, with a hint of dusty soil. The medium-bodied palate is concentrated and fabulously plush, with exotic spice and floral nuances finely knit into the red and black fruit layers, finishing with incredible length. Impactfully graceful and achingly gorgeous, this was one of the wines of this vintage!
One of the wines I opened to celebrate the end of harvest in Burgundy this year was a bottle of the 1983 Château Margaux, and I was blessed with a perfect cork, something that isn't a given with this vintage. Offering up beautiful aromas of sweet cassis, cigar box, petroleum jelly and violets, it's medium to full-bodied, deep and enveloping, with a fleshy core of fruit, melted tannins and a long, aromatic finish. Fully mature today, now is a great time to open bottles.
Crushed roses and peony fragrace brings the Margaux typicity even before you begin tasting, and although this is beginning to soften a little from its heyday, it is still an astonishing wine full of grace and joy. Sweet strawberry puree, cured leather, tobacco, grilled cumin, woodsmoke and gentle tannins, leisurely and generous, with lilting acidities. Paul Pontallier's first vintage as director - although he also oversaw the ageing and bottling of the 1982, and the third for owner Corinne Menzelopoulos. 100% new oak, and an astonishingly generous (almost double today's average) 67hl/h yield.
About the producer
Ch. Margaux is one of Bordeaux’s most historic and famous estates. The only classified First Growth in Margaux, it epitomises the appellation’s elegance, while producing wines with fantastic ageing potential.