2003 Pavillon Rouge

Chateau Margaux has made one of the monumental wines of the vintage-particularly impressive in light of the mixed performance of this appellation in 2003. Estate manager Paul Pontallier considers the 2003 to be the most concentrated wine he's ever made. "We normally seek balance," he told me. "We don't look for overconcentration, which can throw a wine off balance. But the yield in 2003 was just 30 hectoliters per hectare, our lowest in 25 years, except for the frost year of 1991." Still, Pontallier expressed surprise with the way the 2003 is turning out. "I didn't expect the wine to be so classic. I was expecting to find at least traces of the heat, but the wine is pure and fresh." Indeed, the pH of 3.8 and the acidity between 3.2 and 3.3 grams per liter are close to the 20-year average for this great first growth. Incidentally, the index of polyphenols was 75 in 2003, in part due to the estate's ripest cabernet franc ever; the prior record here was 70, reached in 2000, 1995 and 1986.