Chateau Cos d'Estournel - 2003 - Saint-Estephe - 750 ml.

The cellar at Cos d'Estournel is topped with carved pagodas, put up by a nineteenth-century owner who shipped wine to the Far East. The estate holds a ridge at the southern edge of Saint-Estephe, its rows running down to the Pauillac boundary. This is the 2003 Bordeaux blend, from the summer of the European heat wave, when Bordeaux picked well ahead of its usual calendar.