Bordeaux 2005 at Ten Years
Each year for the past few years I have published a Bordeaux at Ten Years report, looking at a goodly selection of bottles from across all the major red wine appellations. I have fallen into the habit of publishing these more extensive annual reports in May or June, there being two principal reasons for doing so. First, the tasting on which this report is based is usually held each year in March, and so it always takes a week or two (or longer) to get around to editing the notes, formatting the pages and writing some introductory text. Secondly, I often find I have a few wines pertinent to the vintage buried deep in the cellar, and after what are often serious excavations in order to retrieve said bottles I need a little time to pull the corks, formulate some thoughts on these wines, and add my home-made tasting notes into the mix.
This year, however, things are a little different. First, the tasting was brought forward by more than a month, and so rather than being mid-March it was held on Thursday 29th January, perilously close to a clash with my departure for the Salon des Vins de Loire the following day. Secondly, and frankly this is the more significant factor, after the tasting I resolved to not pull a single bottle from my cellar, not even any supposed ‘early drinkers’ from lesser appellations I might have tucked away. Why? One simple reason. Regardless of origin, style, dominant grape variety or appellation, to open a bottle from this vintage now is akin to infanticide. These are wines that should, for the moment, be left well alone, to relax and mature, to shed the strident structures they took on during their youth.
