2003 Château Belle-Vue (Haut-Médoc)

• By Stephen Tanzer
  May/June 2004, IWC Issue #114, (See more on Vinous...)

  (Belle-Vue Haut Medoc) Login and sign up and see review text.

Garagiste

• By Jon Rimmerman
  7/5/2007, (See more on Garagiste...)

  (BELLE-VUE Haut Medoc) Dear Friends, ...more Bellevue, or is it Belle Vue? What did we do on the Fourth of July? Sift through the rubble that was our office after the Bellevue offer on the 3rd. Yikes, even I was shocked by the number of people that came out of the woodwork for the Bellevue offer and I had to keep the office partially open yesterday to try and figure out how to allocate the wine (please be kind to Niki, it’s not her fault!) - in the end it was an impossible task. We had literally thousands of requests for it from something like 20 different countries (I stopped counting). I even gave back my two cases (not fair to keep any with this type of response). What I’m trying to say is “sorry” to those that didn’t get any. We try our best everyday to allocate our offers in the fairest way possible but it can be a very difficult task. The good news? I have other things up my sleeve that will make for interesting reading over the next few months... One of them is this wine. In the world of bargain Bordeaux the Belle Vue may not be the Bellevue (St. Emilion) but this wine is one of the better moderately priced wines of the 2003 Margaux vintage (even though it is technically a Haut Medoc) and comparisons to a baby 2003 Kirwan are not far-fetched (more accurately 2003 Giscours, Belle-Vue’s neighbor). Not sure what else to say about this - if you are looking for an everyday wine that delivers a drinkable and outstanding price/value quality in its category (that is rarely achieved in Margaux at this price), this is a “back up the truck” type of wine. As much as I can’t stand that type of retailer garble, in this case it’s pretty accurate. From a proprietor that is every bit as fastidious as his neighbors in Margaux proper (and some would say more so, as he has more to prove with a Haut-Medoc classification), if this property were a few meters to the north, it would be in Margaux and the price would be substantially higher: A wine to just drink and enjoy and not pontificate over. ONE SHIPMENT ONLY with perfect provenance directly from Bordeaux This is another wine many of you will want in large quantity for holiday events or other so I will relax the per-person limit to 24 (Please be patient with final allocations - we will do our best to distribute this as fairly as possible) HIGHLY RECOMMENDED for 2003 Margaux-like quality at a fraction of the cost: 2003 Chateau Belle-Vue (Haut Medoc) (This is not Bellevue la Foret, Haut-Bellevue Cru Artisan, Bellevue Lapourcand, Favereau, Laffont, Claribes, Fronsac, Monfort or anything else with a one word Bellevue - this is two words: Belle Vue ) Thank you, Jon Rimmerman Garagiste Seattle, WA Bord8810

RJonWine.com

• By Richard Jennings
  10/7/2006, (See more on RJonWine.com...) 85 points

  (Château Belle-Vue (Haut-Médoc)) Good red garnet color; cherry, alcohol nose with a touch of lavender; tight, cherry, hot palate, that gets more vegetal as it sits in the glass; medium hot finish