This was another Cabernet vintage, due to extensive Merlot shatter, and thus its quality came entirely from the weather conditions of September and October.
May was rainy (20 days brought 110 mm, compared with the thirty-year average of 75 mm), then June was cool during bloom, with strong temperature variations. This made difficult conditions for pollination and many flowers aborted, especially in the best blocks, which are the most precocious and with the oldest vines.
July and August were also wet and cool, but September (from the 9th onward) and October, were dry with a dominant north-east wind, bringing some hope as this favoured ripening and concentration in the grapes. Important summer work on the canopy and the clusters (trellising, shoot selection, thinning of the grape clusters…) set the stage for maximizing the qualitative potential of the vintage.
The harvest was from September 25th to October 11th.
Because of the absence of much of the Merlot, the wines are mainly made of Cabernet. In June 2003, the wines were dark, deliciously aromatic, rich, very full in the mouth, supple, with very noble tannins.