Opened a 375 ml tonight. First of many bottles (both 375 and 750’s) that showed some real softening in the tannins . . . and as a result the juice is very, very tasty. If my other bottles are following a similar evolution, I think there is good reason to believe this '03 CdP will come around to a really good wine.
I sure hope you are right. I tried one from a 750 about three months ago and thought it was stewed, disjointed and hot. I generally am a fan of Vieux Donjon, but not on that night. I suppose it’s possible that it was in a weird place or that I had an off bottle.
Brad, like you I’ve been a fan of Donjon cdp for some time. My issue with the 2003 bottling has been the searing astringent tannins. I’ve opened about half a dozen 750’s and more than a dozen 375’s so far. I didn’t notice it so much with the first few I opened shortly after its release, but it wasn’t long before it became an overwhelming characteristic of each bottle I opened. As I indicated above, this was the first bottle that seems to have tannins integrating or softening. I’ve seen a number of folks reference the “stewed” note you mention, but I’ve not experienced that - only the disjointed thing that I have associated with the tannins. It’s still a fairly young, so let’s hope that thing takes some good turns! ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
Over the past two days, I have been drinking the 2003 Donjon. I have to say, my experience was much better this time than last. I dug up my tasting note from January on ebob - http://dat.erobertparker.com/bboard/showthread.php?t=192309&highlight=2003+donjon%20in - in which I described a disjointed, hot and even vegetal wine that was a major disappointment. This time, I think the bottle I got was not as bad. Last night, I popped and poured the wine at a little above cellar temp, and the wine had a pleasant element of licorice, earth, red fruit and provencale spice, as well as the nose of lavender that I previously reported. As the wine approached room temp, the heat became a little more apparent but was not too distracting. Today, at room temp, the wine still held together better than the bottle I had in January and offered up the same flavor profile as the day before, but I got little more alcohol heat and a little stewed character. Still, it was a pleasurable, if not outstanding, CDP.
While this bottle clearly was better than the last one I had (in my mind suggesting that perhaps some bottles suffered more from heat exposure and/or just a really hot vintage than others), I still think the 2003 has an inherently ripe and high-alcohol-heat profile based on the good one I had. I may wait a year to kill my last bottle, just to see what another year in bottle does. I’ll definitely drink it at closer to cellar temp than room temp, though.
As an aside, my note on ebob touched off an interesting discussion in which The Palate weighed in to say that I was a victim of bad provenance, even though my bottle was imported directly to a well-regarded shop that (I think I recall) was his former employer, MacArthur Beverages in D.C. But the lovers and haters of the 2003 Donjon all weighed in. Nikolaj Krarup posted about 15 times about the wine and Prem Rawat, and he actually tried to convince The Palate to become a Prem follower. I haven’t read through the thread yet to see how much “touching up” was done by the squirrel after that, but at the time it was pretty amusing – especially considering that Prem (along with Krarup) made his way to this board very shortly thereafter.
EDIT: Having now reviewed the old thread, it appears that NK’s Prem Rawat signature line has been removed, as well as all of his attempts to convince Uncle Bob to consider PR’s teachings. Too bad. The wine discussions have been left mostly untouched, though.