2003 Chevalier Montrachet
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Tasting notes
Full yellow. Slightly exotic aromas and flavors of ripe yellow peach, pear, honey, oatmeal and marzipan. Thick, fat and sweet but in a distinctly late-harvest style despite the early picking date. As chewy as a solid, conveying a dehydrated fruit character, a saline quality and hints of menthol and licorice. Very dominated by the vintage and extremely low in acidity but I would not call this wine tired. Finishes velvety and classically dry. This wine has the sheer extract and glyceral concentration to go on for many years but it's a bit weird for me. And that high 3.75 pH, with very low acidity of 3.69 grams per liter, makes it an outlier in this group. (14% alcohol; 3.75 pH; the harvest in this heatwave vintage began on August 30)
Critic scores
Average Score
Allen Meadows, Burghound
Pierre Rovani
More reviews and scores
The 2003 Chevalier-Montrachet Grand Cru is such an atypical vintage that it's hard to know how to score it. With a pH of 3.75 and 14% alcohol, there's almost no acidity—Leflaive opting, unlike many producers, not to add any tartaric acid in this hot, low-yielding vintage. Offering up aromas of preserved peaches, honeycomb, orange rind, white flowers and licorice, it's full-bodied, rich and fat, with an unctuous, oily texture, a massive endowment of chewy dry extract and a long, sweet—despite the wine containing no residual sugar—and exotic finish. While the wine's low acidity makes it a little cumbersome, it's also true that it's aging at a glacial pace, and it's very hard to predict how it will taste in another two decades. This Chevalier is certainly one of the high points of the 2003 white Burgundy vintage but also a wine that exemplifies its extremes.
Pale yellow. Pure, perfumed nose combines orange, flowers and crushed stone. This combines the volume of the year with good flavor definition and inner-mouth aromatic character. Floral, mineral and orange flavors are a bit exotic for Chevalier, but understated in the context of the vintage. Finishes impressively dense and very long. A very strong 2003.
About the producer
Domaine Leflaive is arguably Burgundy’s most famous white wine producer, setting the benchmark for top-quality Chardonnay in the Côte de Beaune and the world. The property is the largest land-owner in Puligny-Montrachet, with extensive holdings in the village and five hectares of Grand Cru vineyards