2ème Cru Classé, Saint-Julien, Château Léoville Las Cases 2003
Parker 95 (2025); James Suckling 97 (2025); Wine Spectator 96 (2025); Jeb Dunnuck 96 (2025); Wine Enthusiast 94 (2025)
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Why this wine
The leading estate of Saint-Julien, from the walled Grand Clos that sits on the Pauillac boundary beside Château Latour, and a wine that is routinely rated at First Growth level. The 2003 heat gave unusual richness over the house's classic structure, and at twenty-plus years it is drinking rather than waiting. A mature classified growth with the bottle age already done.
At a glance
- Grape
- Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot
- Region
- Bordeaux, France
- Alcohol
- 13.00%
- Body
- Full
- Acidity
- Medium
- Tannins
- High
- Sweetness
- Dry
- Drink
- Long (10-20 yrs)
- Pairs with
- Red Meat, Cheese
How it tastes
Ripe blackcurrant leads, with pencil shavings, chocolate, violets and a chalky mineral edge underneath. Full-bodied and expansive on the palate, with ripe tannins and the concentration a very hot vintage brings, and it builds in the glass rather than showing everything at once. Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot.
The producer
Château Léoville Las Cases is one of the largest and oldest classified growths in the Médoc and the leading estate in St-Julien, partitioned in the 1800s from its sister properties Léoville-Poyferré and Léoville-Barton and held by the Delon family since the late 19th century. The heart of the 54-hectare estate is the Grand Clos, a walled vineyard next door to Château Latour, on Quaternary gravel over gravelly sand and clay, with the Gironde estuary tempering ripening and holding frost off the vines. Grapes were selected by hand and fermented with selected yeasts in French oak vats, then matured for 18 months in French oak barrels, half of them new, and fined with egg white. The 2003 summer was exceptionally hot and dry, forcing some of the earliest picking on record and low yields, and giving a concentrated wine with powerful tannins.
Food and drinking
Serve at 16-18°C and decant an hour ahead. Roast rib of beef, rack of lamb with herbs, slow-cooked venison, or a board of hard aged cheeses such as Comté. Drinking well now and with decades of life still in front of it.