Bordeaux 2005 at Ten Years: St Estèphe
The three big names of the appellation all performed well, led in my opinion by Château Montrose (pictured), yet another data point for this château which seems to go further up in my estimation every time I encounter a bottle. The 2003, for example, tasted on its tenth birthday just a couple of years ago, was a stunning example of what could be achieved when the vines didn’t cave in to the dehydration during that very difficult vintage, the St Estèphe vines coping much better than those further south. And in very recent vintages, not just 2009 and 2010, but also more trying years including 2011, 2012 and 2013, the wines of this château have not failed to impress.
Moving on to Château Montrose’s second-growth compatriot, Château Cos d’Estournel is also looking good at ten years of age. By the time of the 2005 vintage the château had been in the hands of Jean-Michel Reybier for five years, but Guillaume Prats was still on hand, running the estate, and driving forward his vision for the wine. I feel the Prats style really reached a crescendo sometime around the 2008 or 2009 vintage, the wines beginning to show a Port-like concentration and intense structure, but we can see now in the 2005 at ten years that this wine also has a huge wealth of tannins. They are still very apparent now although the rest of the wine feels appropriately wrapped around them, and I think they will resolve in time, but we are talking another decade and probably longer, rather than just a few more years.
