The 2003 Clos de Tart, tasted at the estate and then again from an acquired bottle to witness the effect of air on it, is an outstanding, potentially exceptional wine. That being said, I can’t help but wonder how magnificent it would have been if it had not been acidified. It is dark ruby/purple-colored and bursts from the glass with black cherries, blackberries, and roasting spices. Intensely powerful, this wine boasts superb concentration and depth. A mouth-coating, full-bodied, thick effort, it slathers the palate with black fruits. This sappy, chunky wine possesses an extremely long finish with firm, hard tannin. Air was kind to this 2003, bringing elegance to its muscular nature, and slightly sweetening its tannin. Projected maturity: 2010-2025+.

This is enormously ripe and explodes from the glass with warm wood-framed aromas of coffee, tobacco, plum, prune, smoked meat and dried herbs that introduce massively constituted though not incredibly structured flavors of serious size, weight and depth and blessed with buckets of extract that completely buffer the firm and ripe, firmly tannic backbone. This is not my style but it's not imbalanced or unduly warm and it's a wine that will live for 50 years.