Chateau Pavie 2005

This is the eighth vintage of Pavie produced under the ownership of Mme. and Mr. Perse, and it was a classic year which demonstrated that the chateau has a truly exceptional terroir. The color is a deep and dense purple, with violet highlights which underscore the wine's youth. Its clean aromas highlight good intensity and well-defined fruitiness. Black currants, blueberries and assorted black fruit are present, together with flattering chocolate and spicy notes derived from careful aging in barrel. The first impression on the palate is faultless, and the quality of the vintage becomes evident as its taste evolves. The wine shows a full body, both tight and supple at once. Everything comes together to create an exemplary balance. The tannins are fine-grained, with a structure which ensures a long and brilliant future. The wine's class and nobility express the care taken during vinification to respect the vintage's potential. The finish is mouth-watering and long, worthy of a great Saint-Emilion.

This is a beautiful, polished 2005 whose powerful and fine structure produces a full and round impression. Forget it in the cellar for at least five years, but its great potential will allow the wine to age successfully for 20 years or more.

100 Points - Wine Spectator

I love the purity of fruit in this wine, with perfectly ripe blackberry, blueberry and raspberry on the nose. Complex and full-bodied, with hints of new oak and wonderfully polished tannins that caress the palate. Long, long finish. This is not the blockbuster it was from barrel, but rather a complete, balanced and gorgeous red. Best after 2015.

100 Points - Robert Parker's Wine Advocate

Gerard Perse believes this is the greatest Pavie he’s made to date, although certainly I would argue that list includes the 2000, as well as the 2009 and 2010, among his superstars. This wine, which I had both in the 2005 horizontal report in the Wine Advocate, and at a mini-vertical with Perse at the restaurant Maison Boulud in Montreal, looks to be a 75- to 100-year wine. Dense, opaque purple to the rim, with a gorgeously promising nose of blackberries, cassis, graphite and cedar wood just beginning to emerge, it tastes more like a three-year-old than wine that is already a decade old. This beauty is intense and full-bodied, with magnificent concentration, a majestic mouthfeel and a total seamless integration of tannin, wood, alcohol, etc. Beautifully rich, full and multidimensional, this is a tour de force in winemaking and certainly one of the top dozen or so 2005 Bordeaux. Forget it for another 3-5 years and drink it over the following 50-100 years!

100 Points - Jeb Dunnuck

Even more flamboyant and sexy than the 2000, the 2005 Pavie has everything you could ever want from a wine. Deep, inky purple-colored, an awesome perfume of cassis, blackberries, toasty oak, graphite, and incredible minerality, full body, sweet tannin, and a blockbuster finish all make for an extraordinary Saint-Emilion. It’s still a baby but offers incredible pleasure today. It’s going to last for another 3-4 decades.