Ten Years On: The 2005 Vintage
For my ten year on tasting this year I decided to do something a little different. For the past couple of years I haven’t included any Bordeaux, as it seems rather superfluous since I started writing up a separate ten-years on report for this region, starting with 2003 Bordeaux at Ten Years, and continuing on with 2004 and 2005. This year I have also given the Loire Valley the same treatment, with a tasting report on over forty wines from the 2005 vintage, featuring wines from many of the region’s top names.
This just leaves the rest of the world to cover here then.
Of course, I have no intention of doing anything of the sort, and looking at my cellar it seemed logical to add a regional theme to this tasting too. So this year I have fifteen wines from Germany comprising the bulk of the report, followed up with a twosome from a far-flung corner of France.
Germany 2005
The 2005 vintage was an exceptionally good one in Germany, although it was not entirely straightforward. After a slightly wobbly spring which interfered with flowering and as a result set the vintage up for reduced yields, there came a similarly cool and damp August, retarding growth and ripening. It looked as though it was going to be a weaker low-volume vintage and the arrival of botrytis, encouraged by all the damp weather and the thinning skins of the slowly ripening fruit, only compounded the worry. But then in September the skies cleared, and the weather remained fabulously warm and dry right through the month, and right through October also. The grapes suddenly finished their ripening very quickly, achieving fine concentration but maintaining lovely acidities thanks to the cooler weather during August, and any rot that had appeared on the fruit remained healthy and clean. The harvest took place under excellent conditions. It was a vintage that set a new record for ripeness levels in some corners.
