2003 Chateau Valandraud Saint Emilion Grand Cru Classe

2003 Chateau Valandraud Saint Emilion Grand Cru Classe

GARAGE WINE
I was really tempted to give this wine a five star rating but I refrained from doing so as I didn't have any other great 03 wines next to this glass (eg Lafite or Latour, 100 pointer wines), so I can't compare directly but in my palate memory, it was surely better than Lafite and should be on par with Latour.
Extremely pleasurable wine, big and bold, graphite and inky, although the key takeaway was the undeniable balance of fruits, power and acidity. It really opened up in the decanter.

30 Jun 2015
Valandraud started off as a garage wine movement, just like Le Pin, Barde Haut, Le Dome... Etc, but nowadays this movement has slowed down a lot, some have disappeared, some was very successful. Valandraud was sandwiched between success and failure, not spectacular. Like this 2003, made with very concentrated fruits, very dark fruits, very inky, thus quite big and bold, also heavily oaked thus a lot of vanilla flavor. Can only be a decent wine at best.