E Guigal Ex Voto 2003 1x75cl

100 points Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate

Another perfect wine is the 2003 Hermitage Ex Voto and it’s the most over-the-top, decadent and hedonistic Ex Voto ever produced. From Les Bessards, l’Hermite, Greffieux and les Murets and aged 4 years in 100% new French oak, it offers off-the-charts concentration and texture as well as layers of creme de cassis, smoke meats, licorice, spice-box and spring flowers. Voluptuous, sweetly fruited and yet, like all great wines, still lively, fresh and graceful. It will have half a century or more of life.

97 points Wine Spectator

Exotic, with a gorgeous, mocha-infused fig aroma and rich, flashy flavors of spice, blackberry confiture and licorice. Additional notes of spice cake, incense and loam fill out the finish. This is loaded with structure, but the tannins are silky. A beauty.

96-97 points Stephen Tanzer’s International Wine Cellar

Opaque dark ruby. Incredibly rich, deep and pungent on the nose, offering an outsized bouquet of kirsch, blackberry, cassis and musky cured tobacco. I commented that this smelled like a great port and Guigal, who clearly adores this wine, said “Well, 1945 Taylor is a wine I’d walk miles for.” Powerful, deeply concentrated and sweet, with explosive cherry, plum and dark berry flavors, notes of bitter chocolate and exotic spices, and molten tannins. I’m not sure how you’d serve this monster (15.5% alcohol) but it sure is fun to drink.

94 points Wine Enthusiast

This bottling from Guigal’s own Hermitage holdings is incredibly rich and ripe (15.5% alcohol). In fact, it comes dangerously close to being overblown before the syrupy cherry fruit is reined back in by underlying spice and minerality. Expect that minerally edge to assert itself more with time in the cellar, making this a wine worth revisiting in 10 years’ time.