Château
Pichon Baron

Vintage conditions

The year 2003 will go down in history owing to the heat-wave and drought in June, July and August. We noticed an early bud bursting and a very early flowering, which led to the crop thinning work, starting mid-June on the Merlot plots. Cluster thinning was performed at the middle of the colour change on those plots with heavily loaded vines. The ripening was marked by a very high sugar concentration and low berry weight. The extractability of the anthocyans was exceptionally high, and led us to undertake vinification giving pride of place to long, gentle extraction. The light rainfall of September 8th and 9th boosted ripening.For the Merlot, the young vines were harvested from September 11th to 13th, followed by the old vines from September 15th to 18th. The Cabernet franc and young Cabernet-sauvignon vines, as well as the additional vine shoots, were harvested from September 18th to 23rd and the old Cabernet-sauvignon vines were harvested from September 24th to October 1st. This was undeniably a quality harvest, with very concentrated, sweet musts, although stringent selection was undertaken. The Merlot ripened very fast, but we had to be patient for the Cabernet, with our harvesters waiting for six days right in the middle of the harvest. The very favourable weather conditions enabled us to reach optimal ripeness.