Bordeaux 2005 at Four Years
It might seem somewhat superfluous, maybe even something of a folly, to return to reassess this vintage. After all, surely by now every possible consumer of these wines is aware that this year is a strong contender for vintage of the century if not vintage of the millennium, as evinced by the fashion in which the prices of many of the wines have rocketed skywards since their release in 2006? And surely everybody who will buy 2005 has already bought, especially as the likelihood that prices will continue to rise in coming years is high? Should we not let the wines rest on their laurels, or preferably in our cellars – should we be so lucky – until a time when they will be ready to wake from their slumber and reveal all the joys of maturing claret from a great vintage? Perhaps, but perhaps not! I myself don’t feel such an approach would be a sage one; vintages need to be revisited from time to time, to verify that our early assessments are still valid, or indeed, where appropriate, to correct them, unless we are the sort of taster who calls every bottle right, every time (not me, but such claims are made by others). And of course we may discover good bottles hitherto unnoticed, and thus realise that there is still relative value in the vintage, especially useful information for those looking for labels perhaps of less appeal to investors but which provide the rest of us with some good drinking. And finally, if the wines turn out to be as good as we hoped they would be, then we can begin to look to see when we should be drinking them.
It is perhaps too early to be looking to open and drink these wines, they are still very young, but it is certainly not too late to revisit and reassess the vintage, and look for the good (and good-value) bottles. And so it was that during the first week of November I caught an early flight down to the Institute of Masters of Wine in London for the annual claret tasting, an event which always features the vintage that has just celebrated its fourth birthday. My slate was clean, as I have already extolled during my introduction to the UGC tasting of 2007 Bordeaux; other than a few snippets of information picked up from my occasional browsing of various webfora I haven’t really revisited this vintage since I last tasted the wines two years ago. And so I would hopefully be free of any major bias or preconception during the tasting, other than the seemingly universal understanding that this is a great vintage. So I was expecting great things….but which wines would truly shine on the day, and which would appear to have a somewhat duller hue?
