I’m going through some of my older bottles, flagging some that I should plan to drink. It is time to open the 03 Pavie, or should I let it relax a few more years?
Thanks.
…mike
That is the famous Parker vs. Jancis wine, right?
Yup. Holding off on my two bottles.
Love this note on CT: “If a date, this was a 35 year old former porn star:Dressed to kill and able to thrill.”
I too have one bottle, and though I am more of a Pomerol guy think this will be fun to drink. 
I have one bottle. I get the feeling it would be fun in a blind tasting, probably in the next few years.
October 2019 :
Château Pavie St-Emilion 2003 : 16,5/20
Expression particulièrement mûre, au boisé épicé : gelée de cassis, confiture de fraise, pruneau, viande fumée, bouquet garni. Extrême en effet, avec un début d’évolution. Matière évidemment riche, onctueuse, corsée (j’avais eu la même impression il y a quelques années avec Pavie 2000, solaire, monté aux nues par certains critiques). Bref, beaucoup de bruit pour rien (et un vin excessivement cher). J’entendrai des pistes, très mitigées, en Languedoc, Bordeaux maquillé, Trévallon, super-toscan …
Relative disappointment, Parker style, drink … and forget …
Big yikes
I bought a 750 and a 375 back in the days of The Great Divide . . . and promptly forgot about them. Hadn’t thought about them until this popped up. Suppose it is time to open at least the 375. Country Squire, you are invited.
I gots my Gucci Galoshes ready just for this!
I am ignorant of this conflict. What’s the story?
Boils down to whether the Pavie is jam or wine.
2003 Pavie is a particular flashpoint in the whole Parker / Parkerized wines / direction of Bordeaux culture war.
Specifically, Parker gave it some really high score, Jancis said it was an abomination (though I think she praised it once while having it blind in a tasting?), and there was a bunch of back and forth. At least that’s my distant recollection.
At this point, I wouldn’t put much stock in any tasting notes about it unless they were tasted truly blind – the label just carries too much baggage with it by now.
Oh dear. Here I am trying to have a nice peaceful week with the family, perhaps the last time we’ll manage to lure all three children away on holiday with us, and suddenly I receive a torrent of emails saying things like “Pavie: Bravo!” (from the owner of the best private cellar I know), “Parker’s attack on you is disgraceful” (from a fellow wine writer) and “I’m with you on this one” (from a leading Bordeaux courtier).
Turns out Robert Parker, the wine guru of Maryland, doesn’t like the fact that I don’t like what I have tasted of Ch Pavie 2003 – and takes the trouble to write hundreds of words attacking my opinion. I suppose I should be flattered but, yet again, all I really want to say is that wine assessment is subjective. Am I really not allowed to have my own opinion? Only so long as it agrees with Monsieur Parker’s it would seem. I do wish we could simply agree to differ.
He even suggests that I am lying in my 2003 bordeaux tasting notes when I state that I wrote my notes without knowing the identity of the wine:
Moreover, the line about “not knowing” is funny…yes, one can do these tastings blind, but Pavie is the only premier grand cru estate to use an antique form of bottle that…even when covered up, stands out like a black sheep.
As it happens, the Ch Pavie cask sample I tasted, at an official UGC tasting, was not in a particularly heavy bottle, or not so far as I noticed, and there is no reason for a cask sample to be put in the bottle in which it will finally be sold. (I did notice that one wine in this tasting, which turned out to be Ch Pavie Decesse, also one of Monsieur Perse’s and one to which I didn’t give as bad a note, was in a very heavy bottle, but not the Ch Pavie.)
And for the record, I am not aware of having written any “nasty swipes” about Ch Pavie 1998. Q: What’s the difference between a nasty swipe and a critical tasting note? A: The former does not chime with the most powerful palate in the world while the latter does.
Ah well. Back to Zinfandels from the right side of the Atlantic…
Jancis on 2003 Pavie
To play Devil’s Advocate I would suggest that controversy has impacted on how we assess these wines.
I made the following note when the 2003 was served blind to a group of very experienced amateur ( all but 1 ) group of 9 wine lovers with 161 dinners together under our belts at the time of this dinner in 2018. It was a Super-Tuscan dinner culminating in the 2004 Masseto :
‘A ring-in served blind in a line-up of Super-Tuscans this wine cried out Right Bank Bordeaux with an extra structure and minerality that with the Masseto fruit may have added up to perfection. The surprise was that it was the 2003 Pavie as it tasted very correct with lovely dark plum, blackcurrant, cassis, violet and truffle inflected fruit that was perfectly balanced by its structure. Clearly the terroir is winning through here as the seemingly over the top character I discerned when I tasted this in 2006 has been tamed by time. A lovely and typical bottle of high quality St Emilion’. 95pts which was consistent with the whole group’s assessment.
I appreciate the warmer climate context but this stood out as clearly Bordeaux and was generally picked as an upper end St Emilion from 03 or 05. A pleasant surprise for us all who had also had it soon after release when we all leaned towards the British side of the argument.
To be fair, many in my circles have been served this blind and it is a nonstarter. I think a wine like 2003 Pavie wedged in with other big Bordeaux (especially young!) isn’t as polarizing, but if you have this next to AFWE wines, it comes across a clumsy juggernaut.
I had the 2003 Pavie blind last year and was surprised to find it moderately pleasant, though riper than I prefer. By way of comparison, at different blind tastings the 2005 and 2009 were repellent and undrinkable, presenting a vile combination of overripe fruit and rotting broccoli.
With the descriptors above and the varying opinions you do wonder whether these wines are subject to oxidation and other spoilage similar to comments around the Right Bank in 2009 by Neal Martin and others. Certainly there are a variety of experiences described by people with respected palates. Our 2003 experience was a surprise to all of us.
We are drinking the 2005 tomorrow night as part of a 2005 Right Bank review that includes most of the ‘big hitters’ of that year so that will be another data point to consider.