TN: Chateau Villars 2005

[Chasse-Spleen]

Chateau Villars 2005

This is my first TN on the new BWE. I wish it could be a little more enthusiastic. However there may be a silver lining to this cloud, but we'll have to wait and see. Do you already know what's coming? Perhaps you do! Well onward... opaque purple color, nothing much on the nose. A hint of red/black fruits. On the palate, pretty much more of the same plus a hint of smoke, creosote, tar etc. Good finish in as far as you can tell that there is an aftertaste that lingers, despite the absence of precise flavors. Balance is quite good. Tannic, medium bodied. What can I say? It seems you have to be a really expert taster to definitively say what's going on with a 2005 Bordeaux. This wine is quite closed and without any youthful charm. You can tell there is quality there, but it's just shut tight, hard as nails but without any vicious tannic bite. The funny thing is it reminds me of a number of other 2005s that I've tried. I imagine it would be really tough to tell some of them apart.

The silver lining is that I got this wine on sale at Zachy's for $13.50. If it does in fact begin to drink beautifully at some point down the road, it will be an excellent QPR if you get it at this price, and not the $25 normal price. It seems to me you have to invest a lot more to get the real beauty of '05. The classed growths and better St. Emilions, Pomerols etc that I've tried have shown much greater complexity and clearly will be great wines down the road. This wine showed almost no complexity to me. I expected a bit more fruit.

-Chris

[JimHow]

I have had this wine four or five times and there's just not much there that is very compelling in my book. The Cap de Faugeres is much better.