2005 Château Margaux, Margaux, Bordeaux

85% Cabernet Sauvignon, 8% Merlot, 6% Petit Verdot, 1% Cabernet Franc. Following a cold winter, a hot sunny spring led to quick flowering in early June with hot and dry weather during July/August. This led to the development of small, concentrated grapes and a much lower yield than in the cool, damp 2004.

Margaux was undoubtedly one of the stars of the tasting, displaying a massive, monumental structure suggesting this will be a wine to cellar for several decades to come. Lovely purity and concentration on the palate with black fruit surrounding a core of graphite. Although there were delicate floral notes this seemed more Pauillac than Margaux with a cool character on the palate, fine acidity and polished tannins. A very long future ahead. I scored this very highly in 2009 18.5/20) and felt it was a standout here.

Drink 2023 - 2045

In two recent tastings, the 2005 Château Margaux has been nothing less than magnificent. A wine of stunning perfume and inner sweetness, the 2005 gradually opens to reveal layers of red-toned fruit intermingled with floral accents. It's as if all the classic Margaux signatures have been amped up hugely. Dehydration on the vine concentrated the fruit, but also the impression of tannin and acid, such that the 2005 retains huge fruit density along with plenty of brightness as well. Vibrant and beautifully layered, the 2005 Grand Vin is off the charts and easily one of the wines of the vintage. Readers who own it or can find it are in for a real treat. Tasted two times.

Drink 2021 - 2055

This extraordinary wine announces its brilliance at first glance, with bright curranty fruit aromas that expand quietly at first until one realizes the depth of concentration and flavour it possesses, with exotic spices, smoke, leather, and earth. The blend of 85% Cabernet Sauvignon and 15% Merlot, aged in new casks, produces a silky texture, perfect balance, and enough substance to give fantastic length without any heaviness. This wine was a unanimous favourite in the flight.

Drink 2021 - 2040

The nose on this seems more concentrated than the 2000, and the purity of fruit is stunning, with blueberries, raspberries, fresh flowers, and hints of liquorice. This is perfect and complete. Full-bodied, with notes of forest berries and wild raspberries, this is thick and velvety with perfectly polished tannins. You can really feel the density on this, more than the tannic structure. This is a sleeping beauty that will be utterly captivating when it awakes. 

Don't touch this until after 2015.

The famed Château Margaux is a 1er cru classé, first growth property, in Bordeaux. The 2005 vintage was heralded as a 5-star year. Château Margaux upped their Cabernet Sauvignon proportion of the blend in 2005 to 85%. If I have to pick my favourite wine from the wonderful 2005 vintage, this one certainly comes very close. Rich plum-purple colours in the glass, just softening around the edges. Attractive just-starting-to-age claret aromas on the nose – liquorice, black truffles and soft black fruits, all carried through onto the palate, have all of the looked-for elements in play. Great plush texture and, a lovely balance of acidity, tannins and fruit, love the complexity and it really lingers on the palate, impressive persistency. Outstanding for me, great Margaux typicity.

Tasted single blind at Southwold. The crystalline nose here is primal, backward, takes some coaxing from the glass: blackberry, bilberry, briary, graphite and a spellbinding sense of mineralite. The palate is beautifully balanced with svelte tannins. Touches of sandalwood inflecting the pure fruit, deftly integrated new oak; incredible length once again. Despite the vice-like grip on the finish there is a feminine quality to this wine. Quite simply: it takes your breath away. Perfection. 

Drink 2015 - 2040+

The first-growth 2005 Château Margaux 85% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Merlot), a lavish fragrance of blackcurrants, velvety new saddle leather, spring flowers and spice soars from the glass. The wood is already totally concealed beneath the cascade of fruit in this medium to full-bodied, pure and majestic wine. This concentrated, dense, but nevertheless strikingly elegant, multi-layered wine has a finish of 45+ seconds. It builds incrementally to a crescendo and finale. This is a stunner that can be approached already, but promises to be better in another 5-10 years and last at least 25 or more years.

Drink 2020 - 2050

Bottled late, in November of 2007. 

Saturated red-ruby. Explosive aromas of plum, raspberry, bitter chocolate, coffee, almond paste and smoke; this smells voluptuous. Then extraordinarily opulent on the palate, with an almost marzipan-like ripeness. Coats every square millimetre of the mouth with a texture of liquid silk. The baby fat here is incredible, but there's a structure of steel and powerful minerality underneath. One of the longest samples I tasted in Bordeaux this spring, and a wine with uncanny finishing sweetness. This fabulous vintage of Margaux should evolve positively in bottle for three or four decades in a cold cellar.

"The really important things begin in August, but this year we had bad luck with the weather that month," said director Paul Pontallier. "The vines were continually wet and the foliage kept growing, so in the end we were not able to make a wine with great structure. On the other hand, we did not lose a single berry to mildew." Despite the extended growing season, which featured more than 120 days between the flowering and the harvest, the cabernet franc and petit verdot here did not reach full maturity, Pontallier added. That's the bad news. The good news is that the young 2007 Margaux may well have the purest, most perfumed aromas of the vintage. The selection for the grand vin was a very strict 32%, with another 48% going into the estate's Pavillon Rouge and the remaining 20% of the juice going into a third wine.