Parker's Top 100 2005 Bordeaux Wines

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For those seeking a comprehensive overview of Bordeaux best vintages and comparisons between legendary years, we recommend visiting Cult's Guide to The Best Bordeaux Vintage Years.

Parker’s highly anticipated 10 year Bordeaux retrospective was published yesterday in the latest edition of the wine advocate. Ever since Parker’s public comments admitting he may have under-scored the 2005’s investors, collectors, merchants and brokers have been eagerly awaiting Parker’s official re-scoring of the 2005 Bordeaux vintage, with many expecting significant increases across the board. Parker certainly didn’t disappoint, but as can often be the case with the pre-eminent critic, he did throw in a few surprises.

In his introductory notes, Parker maintained his belief that 2005 was ‘a vintage surrounded by excessive and unprecedented hype.’ And whilst the 2005 vintage ‘is eclipsed in quality and consistency by both the 2009 and 2010s’, he also admitted that this was ‘only by a relatively minor margin’.

Parker also noted that ‘the vintage does have fabulous peaks of quality in Pomerol, St.-Emilion, Graves and Margaux’ but that the wines from St-Julien, Pauillac and St.-Estèphe, whilst producing some outstanding wines, for Parker they ‘lack the “wow” factor’.

This preference towards the wines of the Right Bank and Graves over the Left Bank is noticeable in his scores, where the Medoc wines were those that missed out the most in comparison to those on the Right Bank.

Overall

• Parker believes the vintage looks strong and impressive at age ten.
• Believes in quality, the 2005 vintage is second to 09 and 10, but only by a relatively minor margin.
• 12 wines awarded a perfect 100 point score (up from just 2 wines previously)
• Vintage favours the wines of the Right bank, Graves and Margaux over the more northerly Medoc appellations

Winners

• St. - Emilion the biggest winner from Parker’s latest re-scores, with 8 properties being awarded a perfect 100 point score.
• 58 properties in total have scores over 93 points from Bordeaux’s Right Bank (Pomerol and St.-Emilion) which is more than double the 24 properties form the heavyweight appellations of Pauillac, Margaux, St Estpehe and St Julien.
• Graves performed very well also, with wines across the board upgraded. Including a double 100 for Haut Brion and La Mission Haut Brion. The third vintage to do so (’89, ’05, ’09).
• 5 wines received the magical 100 point score for the first time – Angelus, Chateau Troplong Mondot, Peby Faugeres, Bellevue Mondotte, Larcis-Ducasse
• Given the small production of a number of the wines that received 100 points, it’s conceivable that prices for these ‘perfect-scored’ wines could increase very significantly in the short term.
• Angelus has already traded on Liv-ex exchange at £3,800 per 12 (+52% on our initial offer price pre-scores)

Losers

• Northern Medoc appellations, despite high hopes for improved scores, suffered the most from Parker’s retrospective.
• Notable downgrades – LLC, Mouton, Cos, Lafite, Chateau Montrose, Lynch Bages, Duhart, Leoville Barton.
• In a somewhat strange move, Mouton Rothschild, which Parker had only re-scored as recently as December 2014 @ 99+ points. Saw it’s scored reduced by 2 points to 97.

Unfortunately there were also some notable absentees from the Parker re-scores including Chateau Ducru Beaucaillou, Vieux Chateau Certan, Chateau Le Pin and Beausejour Duffau-Lagarosse (BDL).

Despite producing one of the best scored wines on the left bank in Parker’s original 2005 tasting notes (97 pts) Bruno Borie had earlier this year declined to participate in the 2005 Bordeaux retrospective tasting laid on for journalists such as Jancis Robinson. Perhaps its absence from Parker’s tasting report has something to do with this? Vieux Chateau Certan, had a more academic problem, of not having a single bottle of the 2005 left at the property to be able to provide a sample bottle. Meanwhile, one would assume that due to the micro-production of both Le Pin and BDL, they too had similar issues of providing bottle samples for tasting.

Table summary of Parker Points by Appellation