2005 is the greatest Bordeaux vintage ever, and I'm glad

[Houndsong]

Yeah, yeah, mea culpa and all that. Six-eight months in a cold cellar was all it took to tame these turbid, gooey, saccharine beasts. I've resampled a few of my 05s and either they've changed or I have. It started a couple of months ago when I tried a bottle of that really dreadful Ch. Bel Air, CdC, and noticed that it didn't seem nearly as sweet as when I first sampled it, and that it had grown a bit of snap and spine. So now it seemed merely "hedonistic" as Parker's fond of saying. I liked the Faizeau I reported on recenlty from day one, and that sent me back to the once very weak de Fieuzal and then the Cambon la Pelouse. The de Fieuzal still seems a bit funny. At least now it has nice smokey-berry flavors, and a bit more acidity, but this one still seems to lack any gravity, and hasn't got a lot of tannin. It's sort of ethereal, but it also seemed to gain some intensity as it woke up over a few hours, and my wife commented that she liked it. So maybe it can play some role in the cellar. Now the real shocker, I appear to have given the Cambon la Pelouse a bad rap when I called it "la Pelooze." This wine also appears to have tightened up/dried up a good bit and is showing more spine and acidity and complexity than previously. The last half of the bottle made a very strong showing after six days of inadvertant refrigeration. In fact, I'd say it was even better than on opening, and it had held its bouquet that entire time. Usually I find that leaving wine overnight in the fridge radically alters the fragance, pretty much kills it, so this was quite a surprise.

[Jay Winton]

My 05 Cambon le Pelouse has also improved quite a bit since I received them a few months ago.

[JimHow]

It takes a real BWEer to do what you did, HS, well done. Very well done. You are clearly confident in your wine enthusiam-hood.

[Claret]

Amazingly, I have neither tasted nor bought any 2005's. That is until last week when we bought a Mouiex Merlot for ITNOS purposes in the very near future.

I have 200 bottles of Bordeaux back to a scant few remaining 82's. My willingness to pay yet again record high prices and the need to cellar the bottles for 15-20 years just did not make much sense to me considering that I was intent on increasing my depth of Pinot Noirs from Burgundy, Willamette Valley and a couple from California namely Dehlinger and Rhys.

Fortunately I am now in a position to reap the harvest of my well aged Claret's that I have nurtured for close to two decades.

[Jay Winton]

The 05 Prignac for $9 we tried last night was pretty darn good and a real QPR. I'm glad I bought a case.

[Blanquito]

The amazing thing about 2005 Bordeaux, IMHO, is how terrific the lower pedrigree wines are. Sure, sure, Parker called this, saying this was the best cru bourgeois vintage since 1982, but don't take his word for it.

That said, I'm not sure the upper tier of Bordeaux is any better in 2005 than 2000... I just had the 2000 Giscours and d'Issan, and both were fantastic.