This wine is the real deal - big, luscious, complex and balanced already. Wonderful dark fruits frame aromas of mushrooms, slight underbrush, licorice and blackcurrant. Blockbuster mid-palate with a long flavorful finish. The ripeness of the 2003 vintage shows and it gives immense pleasure now, but this wine is distinctively Bordeaux - glad I purchased a case at $57/bottle on futures. 96+ Points.

Thanks for the notes jaimetown.

Did you decant? If yes, how long?

Thanks for the note, JT. Despite their early drinkability, I will lock away my bottles for quite a long time.

I did not decant at all actually - I wanted it to see how it did over the course of a day. It opened up a little more at around hour #2, and continued to show beautifully without shutting down for eight hours.

damn. that was an awesome call on the futures... it was "released" at $75 iirc and the cheapest W-searcher has it is $110. Nice. sounds lovely.

2003 Château Léoville Barton - France, Bordeaux, Médoc, St. Julien (11/4/2006)
VC's Third Annual Cult Smackdown (Sunnyvale, CA www.lionandcompass.com): Tasted single blind. It seemed like a good quality wine but was missing distinguishing characteristics - it seemed flat. Eventually there were some pencil shavings that led me to believe this was the LB. Not a great showing for this wine maybe due to the group of beauty queens in the flight. My #4 of the flight of 6. (90 pts.)

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