Like many of my colleagues, I was at first sceptical of the 2003 vintage. Although the dry German Rieslings are now beginning to show better than I would have every imagined, the red Burgundies have fared even better. I must admit that Bernard Hervet, now the director of Faiveley, had always told me how well he thought that they would develop, but a tasting of Bouchard Père & Fils that he hosted for the Grand Jury at the Villa d'Este four years ago only deepened my reserve. It was his last vintage there and he ostensibly set aside over 100,000 bottles for the library, claiming that they would one day be seen in the same light as the 1959s and 1947s. A Musigny 2003 from Jacques Prieur has - among others - put me on Saul's road to Damascus. The noble late harvest Rieslings, however, have always been beyond the shadow of a doubt, as a 2003 Trockenbeerenauslese from Johannisberg proved last night. Comments