Buying bordeaux en primeur may have gone out of fashion for the moment but this was far from the case 20 years ago. The 2005 vintage was keenly awaited and, despite some marked price increases, they were generally accepted by the wine-buying public as reasonably warranted (unlike today) because the wines were obviously of exceptionally high quality – and have increased in price since the primeur offers.
Some subsequent vintages may be even better than 2005 (see below) but at the time there was never any doubt about the quality of the best 2005s. I see that in the multiple articles I wrote about 2005 en primeur in early summer 2006 after tasting the young 2005s in Bordeaux, ‘Most years I find tasting hundreds of young primeur samples of bordeaux each spring intellectually fascinating but physically exhausting. This year, even after tasting over 700 samples of often still-fermenting red and white bordeaux barely six months old, I felt great. Why? Because most years the palate is assaulted by a succession of wines which have an excess of something: alcohol in 2003, tannin in 2004, acidity in 2001. But although the 2005s have a lot of everything (and certainly no shortage of alcohol or tannin), all the elements are in the right proportion.’
Christian Moueix, then still managing Petrus, Bordeaux’s most expensive wine, commented that, ‘it was clear by spring 2005 we were heading for a great vintage’. Jacques Thienpont of Le Pin, the wine that challenged Petrus for the top spot, called it ‘the deckchair vintage’, a reference to where he spent most of August instead of hovering anxiously over his precious Merlot vines in Pomerol.
Bordeaux vignerons had been scarred by the extremely high temperatures of the 2003 vintage when nights as well as days reached record temperatures and grapes ripened dangerously fast. Summer of 2005 was also hot during the day but nights were cool so the ripening process was much more gradual, satisfactorily building flavour.
With such quality on offer, the international wine trade was raring to go. As I wrote, ‘The plane back to London from Bordeaux after the primeurs tasting was 90% wine-merchant-loaded, and could have been propelled by sales intent rather than aviation fuel. There will be a very nasty scrap for allocations of the top wines to merchants, and the potentially even nastier business of allocating them to the most faithful, or perhaps most affluent, customers.’
Such was the popularity of the vintage that even Majestic Wine Warehouses, a high-street chain previously unfamiliar with en-primeur offers of such classic wines, decided to put their toe in the water with an offer of 2005s, at prices much lower than those of the traditional merchants. Then managing director Tim How reported record demand for them. London merchant Armit even offered four 2005s by the whole barrique.
This was a hugely popular vintage with wine enthusiasts and I would wager that not a few visitors to JancisRobinson.com have some 2005 bordeaux in their collections. But, however well balanced, 2005 had the reputation of being a slow-maturing vintage with a high tannin content that should be kept many a long year before broaching. So a recent tasting of 27 of the top wines will, I hope, be of interest.
London, Hong Kong, Tokyo and, soon, Washington DC wine merchants Berry Bros & Rudd must have bought 2005 bordeaux in considerable quantity because they recently launched an offer of wines by the bottle and case at prices that are certainly high but look fair compared with current market rates. And the offer has the advantage that, unusually for the UK, it’s possible to buy mature fine wine by the single bottle (except for three of the 27 wines on offer, which are available only by the case in bond).
In order to stimulate orders, they invited media parasites like me and some of their customers to taste them. Prices per bottle of these 27 wines, including all duties and taxes, varied from £64 for Château Batailley, a fifth-growth Pauillac from a bottle that I thought was showing well, to £810 for the St-Émilion first growth Château Cheval Blanc. (See the Oxford Companion to Wine entry on classification for an explanation of Bordeaux’s vinous hierarchy.)
Berrys’ Master of Wine Barbara Drew afterwards described the tasting thus: ‘After a year of much discussion around Bordeaux, and the en primeur system, this was a great opportunity to remind ourselves of the superlative wines made in this region, and the joy they deliver when beautifully mature.’
Those attending the tasting had a rare chance to taste all the left-bank first growths plus Cheval Blanc – quite a treat. My favourite wine of the whole tasting was Château Haut-Brion 2005 (£634 in the offer – surely a mistake!). As well as obvious ripeness and structure – qualities shared by all these wines – this most famous Pessac-Léognan of all also had freshness, a quality lacking in some of the wines. Some seemed just a bit too stolid and earthbound. Admittedly, Haut-Brion is more approachable than most in youth in virtually all vintages. An optimist might feel that my more ‘stolid’ examples will eventually mature into something even more beguiling but if an expensive wine still isn’t giving maximum pleasure after one has paid nearly 20 years of storage charges, there’s an argument for not buying it at all.
Among Berrys’ 27 wines shown only four were from the right bank. The cheapest of these, Château Figeac (£202), was the most glorious, a wine with an obvious past, present and future. But the most expensive after Cheval Blanc, Angélus (£454), tastes now a bit too reminiscent of the time when St-Émilion producers seemed fatally in love with oak and alcohol – not least in contrast to the much subtler Cheval Blanc. With 14.5% on the label, Angélus was the most potent wine in the collection, and the only one to taste actively sweet. In 2005, Angélus was far from the only St-Émilion in this now-passé style. As Pierre Lurton, then managing Château Cheval Blanc, put it at the time about many other St-Émilion 2005s, ‘you could build a chalet out of some of these wines’.
When tasting wines, as members know well, I not only write a tasting note and, rather reluctantly, add a score out of 20, but I also try to suggest a period during which the wine is likely to show at its best.
With these 2005s tasted recently, using the huge amount of guesswork required for this exercise, most of my suggested drinking windows began around 2017 or 2018. The most backward wine was Château Léoville Las Cases (£202). As usual, Château Latour (£604) seemed a bit less evolved than most but not as backward as one might expect of this famously slow developer in a vintage as tannic as 2005. Château Léoville Barton (£114) is another Cabernet Sauvignon-heavy wine that is famously reserved but the 2005 is well past its austere stage. I suggested 2020 to 2045 as the ideal drinking window for both Léoville Barton and two of the three wines from the Margaux commune, Châteaux Margaux (£604) and Palmer (£303), both of which were showing extremely well.
Presumably Berrys’ main purpose was to make money but their subsidiary purpose of reminding us how good fully mature red bordeaux can be was certainly achieved.
Recommended 2005 red bordeaux
Listed here are the best-value wines, whatever the price, from the current offer of Berry Bros & Rudd, with duty-paid prices per bottle in pounds, although some have sold out. We have substituted alternative retailers for those wines that Berrys have sold out of – though there may still be the odd bottle in their shop or availability by the case on their BBX trading platform. All had 13% alcohol on the label except for those noted below.
Château Batailley £64
Now £66 Ancient & Modern Wines
Château Giscours £87
Now £95 Hedonism
Château Gruaud Larose £92
Ch Grand-Puy-Lacoste £94
Now £80 Nickolls and Perks, £109 Uncorked
Ch Léoville Poyferré £108 13.5%
Now £144 Provinance, £150 Hedonism
Château Pontet-Canet £109
Now £110 Lay & Wheeler
Château Léoville Barton £114
Now £130 The Bordeaux Cellar, £159 Vintage Wine and Port, £159 The Perfect Bottle
Château Lynch-Bages £144
Château Montrose £152
Now £145.20 Slate Fine Wines, £179 The Perfect Bottle
Château Cos d’Estournel £169
Now £183.60 Slate Fine Wines, £219 The Perfect Bottle
Château Figeac £202 13.5%
Now £228 Barber Wines, £240 Wine Trove
Château Haut-Brion £634 14%
Now £687.60 Vinum Fine Wines
For multiple tasting notes, scores and suggested drinking dates on these wines, see our tasting notes database and, in particular, Bordeaux 2005 by the bottle in 2025. For other stockists and prices, see Wine-Searcher.com.
Back to basics
| Which are the best vintages for red bordeaux? |
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2025 Too early to say but summer was extremely hot and dry until mid August when cool, damp weather set in.
2024 Very difficult, wet growing season and very small crop.
2023 Merlot particularly fell foul of downy mildew but the wines in the end had more freshness than 2022.
2022 Very hot and dry conditions produced potent wines.
2021 Notably cool season when some grapes struggled to reach full ripeness.
2020 Hot, dry summer then cool, damp conditions in September produced notably tannic wines.
2019 A standout vintage with wines showing extremely well already but with a long life ahead, too.
2018 Downy mildew again – which does not affect wine quality, which was notably varied.
2017 Shrunk by frost but some charming wines that are already providing pleasure.
2016 An exceptionally good-quality vintage but perhaps a little less ethereal than 2019.
2015 Famously ripe but tannic. Wines are now ready for drinking though.
Other very good vintages this century are 2010, 2009, 2005 and 2000. Some 2001s are very good, too. |
