2003 Chateauneuf du Pape Vieilles Vignes

What's a candidate for the wine of the vintage, the sensational 2003 Chateauneuf du Pape Vieilles Vignes (85% Grenache and 15% Syrah) is a sunny, Provencal, sexy and incredibly full-bodied beauty. With a still youthful ruby color, a big mid-palate, sweet tannin and tons of decadent aromas of currants, black cherries, garrigue, chocolate and spiced meats, this blockbuster Chateauneuf du Pape delivers incredible intensity and flavor (it's over 16% alcohol), yet stays lively, graceful and seamless. It's ready to go, but will keep through 2023.

Just a smoking Châteauneuf, the 2003 VV has a glorious perfume of plum and blackberry liqueur that’s intermixed with roasted herbs, garrigue, licorice, and flowers. This walks a thin line on the ripeness scale, avoiding going over the top, and stays fresh and clean as well as ripe, decadent, and hedonistic. On the palate, the wine is full bodied with ripe, very rich fruit, a lush, perfectly balanced mouth feel and a super long finish that’s framed by ripe, silky tannin. Certainly one of the wines of the vintage and given the overall size and scale to the wine, it still holds onto a sense of balance and elegance. Approachable and delicious now, I would plan to either drink bottles over the next 10 years or, if you have the luxury, try a bottle in 5 years to gauge how it’s evolving and go from there. I love it.

Inky ruby color. Explosively aromatic and nuanced on the nose, with intense cherry, blackberry and cassis fruit aromas complicated by licorice, cola, sassafras, magnolia and dried rose. Exotic and sweet, with wild flavors of blood orange, kirsch, raspberry jam, truffle and mocha. Dense and loaded with extract, with a distinctly unctuous, mouthcoating texture. The tannins are totally buffered by the superripe berry flavors.