Lafaurie-Peyraguey Sauternes 2003

Lafaurie-Peyraguey
Sauternes 2003
97 / $45
Bordeaux
6,520 cases made

Lafaurie-Peyraguey has produced some of Sauternes’ most powerful wines for more than two decades. The 2003 is no exception—Bordeaux’s hottest summer on record produced a full-bodied dessert wine with incredibly intense apricot and honey aromas. To achieve that concentration, the château uses more than 90 percent Sémillon, planted on 100 acres of gravel. Read more

Château Léoville Las Cases St.-Julien 2004

Château Léoville Las Cases
St.-Julien 2004

95 points / $90
20,000 cases made
France

Bordeaux’s wet, cool 2004 vintage got lost between the exceptional 2003 and 2005, but Jean-Hubert Delon’s St.-Julien estate consistently delivers excellent wines in both great and difficult years. Half of the château’s 250 acres are planted in the famous Clos Léoville Las Cases, a gravelly vineyard that gently slopes down to the Gironde river. The wine was fermented in a mix of stainless-steel tanks, oak vats and cement tanks, then aged for about 18 months in oak barriques.

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