This sports a warm fig bread and Christmas pudding profile, with steeped plum and fig notes lined with smoldering tobacco and humus accents. Slightly grainy in feel, but showing ample length and drive for the vintage.—Blind '01/'03/'05 Bordeaux retrospective (December 2017). JM

Beautifully intense fruit here, with a raspberry jam and floral character on the nose. Full and round, soft and silky. A very long finish with amazing fruit, almost like a new world wine with it’s juiciness. Drinking this is pure excitement.

As always, the 2003 Trotanoy is a meaty, burly style of wine, but the tannins have all been resolved. A dark plum/ruby color is accompanied by sweet black currant and mulberry notes intertwined with hints of truffles and earth. This medium- to full-bodied, delicious Pomerol is clearly one of the finest 2003s made in this appellation, whose lighter soils did not fare well in this vintage. Trotanoy’s clay and deep minerality have saved it. Drink it over the next 4-5 years.

Deep red. Highly aromatic, enticing nose offers black cherry, blueberry, violet and mint. Intensely flavored, concentrated and primary, with solid underlying structure and impressive mid-palate energy. Very classy young Pomerol, finishing with firm but fine tannins and lovely violety persistence. This has rare definition and nobility for a 2003 Pomerol.

(95% merlot and 5% cabernet franc; 3.67 pH; IPT 63;13.3% alcohol): Full medium ruby with a hint of garnet at the rim. Sexy aromas of superripe red cherry and blackberry, white pepper and mint. Then rich, creamy and fruit cocktail-like, with compelling sweetness to the red berry and marzipan flavors. This lush, seamless, impressively broad wine retains good verve in spite of its full ripeness and the extremely hot year. Finishes with slightly gritty tannins (an effect of the excessive heat that made full physiological ripeness of the polyphenols tough to achieve) and earth and leather notes. This is one of the few 2003 Bordeaux I truly like and recommend. In 2003, the harvest at Trotanoy began very early: the merlot was picked between September 2 and 4, and the cabernet franc on September 9. "In a year of furnace-like heat, we were able to preserve some freshness, which was our real merit," said Jean-Claude Berrouet.

A little raisiny on the nose. Quite savoury and a good Pomerol for this vintage, with just enough freshness. (JH)