2003 Climens - Barsac Sauternes (750ml)

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Loads of honey, maple syrup, dried apricot and spice. Full-bodied, medium-sweet, with a refined, spicy character. Pretty wine. Masses of botrytis. This is refined and long, a racy wine compared with the power and muscle of so many others. Beauty among the beasts. Best after 2012. 2,300 cases made. -JS WS

Medium yellow. Reticent, spicy nose opens slowly to reveal apricot, orange and caramel. Fat, silky and sweet, with the sheer concentration to support its substantial alcohol. Quite unctuous for Climens, with an almost confectionery quality to the fruit. Comes across as less firm than usual for a young Climens, but then today the wine's structure is buried beneath its opulence and baby fat.- Stephen Tanzer (7/26)

Ex-chateau bottle tasted blind in Sauternes. The Climens '03 has always been a capricious Barsac: brilliant out of barrel but found wanting under vertical conditions. Here, amidst a blind horizontal, it fell somewhere between the two! This bottle offers a sweet ripe bouquet of candied orange peel, dried honey and fig that is missing a little delineation (as discerned on previous bottles.) The palate is ripe and rounded on the entry with a touch of spice that lends it a pleasant edginess. Mango and pineapple form the middle whilst the finish is composed and focused with commendable precision and citric acidity. To repeat comments I have made before, this is a decent Climens, but Berenice Lurton has made far superior wines in recent years. Tasted April 2013. - Neal Martin (6/2013)