2003 Le Corton

The 2003 Corton Clos des Cortons Grand Cru from Faiveley has a decent black cherry, mulberry, cola and light mushroom bouquet that is très Faiveley and – hats off – has aged better than many other red 2003s. The palate is medium-bodied with a lightly spiced and slightly alcoholic opening, and grippy and assertive in the mouth. The rustic, ferrous finish might outstay its welcome by the second glass. Tasted at Sarah Marsh’s 2003/2004 tasting in London.

Exceptionally dark crimson, admittedly without blue notes but still very notable. No nose. Big, sweet, dry, fossilised wine. I can’t see how this has developed or will develop at all. Dry tannins on the end. Austere finish. (JR)

Very deep red, by far the darkest in the tasting; showing no amber yet. Bordeaux-like nose combines redcurrant, black raspberry, graphite, mocha, cedar, licorice, mint and bouquet garni ; it's hard to recognize Burgundy here (Jérôme Flous noted that "we feared that 2018 would be like 2003 but we were saved by having a lot of moisture in the soil"). A medicinal, mouthfilling monster with its black fruit and menthol flavors conveying a distinctly "southern" dried-fruit and Provençal herb character. Today the finish is cut off by palate-shattering tannins. Erwan Faiveley describes this as "one of the biggest Burgundies I've ever tasted," noting that its IPT ( indice de polyphénols totaux ) is 130, which is off the charts. And I recall that when François Faiveley first showed me this wine from barrel in late 2004 (he bottled it early, in December of that year), he predicted that it would need at least 15 years of bottle aging; that has turned out to be an understatement. In fact, I wonder if this bulletproof wine will ever truly be easy to drink. I'm not sure if I would have pegged it blind as Pinot Noir. (This wine weighs in at 14.4% alcohol, while the rest of the vintages in this tasting are typically between 13.2% and 13.7%; 3.57 pH; 3.5 g/l acidity; from a harvest that began on August 25; just 18 hectoliters per hectare produced)