It is totally premature to judge the quality of the Bordeaux 2005 vintage at this early stage. Nevertheless we find very interesting to read the pro's reports on the recent harvest and how they assess the potential of their wines. And apparently winemakers seem to be extremely happy this year!

Click on the appellation's name for more details on the region

Frédéric Engerer - Château Latour - Pauillac 

Jean-Philippe Delmas - Château Haut-Brion - Pessac-Léognan, Graves 

Thomas Duroux - Château Palmer - Margaux 

Nicolas & Christophe de Bailliencourt dit Courcol - Château Gazin - Pomerol 

Fabien Teitgen - Florence Cathiard - Château Smith-Haut-Lafitte - Pessac-Léognan, Graves

Francis Mayeur - Château d'Yquem - Sauternes - Barsac

Frédéric Engerer - Château Latour - Pauillac

Bordeaux 2005: weather and phenological conditions  
After a year marked by heavy drought, the 2005 shows signs of a really promising vintage. This has been confirmed by the very first controls on maturity carried out since early September, and applies for both the Merlots and Cabernet Sauvignons with sugar and polyphenolic levels that have rarely been reached in the past. 

The dry weather settled early this year, after very little rain in winter. These extreme weather conditions have remained unchanged up until the harvests. The day before the harvests, we noted that there was a water deficit of nearly 350mm and that as a result of the changing climate witnessed over the last three years, the vines have had to adapt in consequence. Surprisingly, the water shortage that affected the vineyards in 2003 was not as apparent this year (except for sandier soils). This was probably due to the vine’s root development within the deepest layers of the subsoil. 

As from spring, we had ideal weather conditions that perfectly helped branch growth and flowering, which occurred this year from May 26 to June 7: rapid and complete. The deficiency in rainfall continued the following months and despite the ideal conditions for development in June, the vine’s vegetative growth halted from the beginning of July. 

Owing to these exceptional conditions, there was very little vine disease and pests this year, so protection against the main diseases and pests was limited. 

Once we had made the first estimations on the potential yield, we could notice high bunch development with a great quantity of berries. Throughout summer, our efforts were focused on the works in the vineyard, reducing the number of clusters per vine plant and thinning out the excess leaves around the grapes. Consequently, the grapes could ripen within a micro-climate, favouring aromatic expression and chemical balance. 

Since the beginning of September, when we first tasted the berries, we are lead to strongly believe in an excellent crop potential. The fruit is truly present with extraordinary sugar levels for the Merlots (between 13.5° and 14.2°) and already very high for the Cabernet Sauvignons (between 11.8° and 13°). The tannins contained in the skins are particularly dense, and if the fine weather continues during the harvests, we consider that this vintage will be one with excellent ageing potential. 

On Friday September 16 we started to pick the best Merlots of the “Enclos” to preserve the freshness and the fruit obtained by this vintage. As usual, the Cabernet Sauvignons will ripen later, and we may to wait a few extra days. However, as from the beginning of October the harvests will be at their peak in the vines and in our cellars. As we are waiting to finally taste the first vats, we hope to discover the same qualities as 1989, 1990 or even 1949… 

Fréderic Engerer, Director

http://www.chateau-latour.fr/index_fra.html

Jean-Philippe Delmas - Château Haut-Brion - Pessac-Léognan, Graves

2005 will remain etched in our minds as a historically dry year
When we started the harvest of the Sauvignons on the 24th of August, we had never before seen vines looking quite this beautiful. The grapes all reached a perfect maturity in a very homogenous manner, without us noticing any flaws or signs of damage. The vine having barely grown since its last trim could be seen at its best, aligned, upright and proud. 

It is understandable that the vine is proud for it has produced white and red grapes of an extraordinary concentration; analytically, quantitatively but also from an organoleptic point of view. Never before have we gained such pleasure from tasting the grapes. 

The grapes benefited enormously from the excellent weather conditions over the summer. The months of June, July and August were of course particularly dry but also exceptionally hot and sunny. 

We finished harvesting the white grapes on the 31st of August, thereupon immediately commencing to pick the red grapes starting with the Merlots. Our last Cabernets were harvested on the 26th of September, one month after the first snips of our harvesting shears. 

What we discovered during and following the fermentations confirmed our first impressions in the vines. Both the whites and the Merlots which have finished their fermentations are of purity, amplitude and a complexity that we have never before seen at this juncture. 

As farmers and winemakers, we are by nature and tradition reserved and prudent people but this year it is difficult for us to contain our smiles. Our faces light up when tasting the vats. Although we don’t dare say it, we have to admit that our eyes and palates are witnessing the birth of something rather exceptional.

Jean-Philippe Delmas, Director - Pessac October 4th, 2005

haut-brion.com/home/en/langflash-en.php

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Thomas Duroux - Château Palmer - Margaux

Bordeaux 2005 harvest diary
Wednesday, August 31. 2005
A new grape reception area for vintage 2005
We have installed a new grape reception area in the court outside the vatroom: a 6 meter sorting table for selecting bunches, machinery to separate grapes from stems and the crusher. 34 people will be needed to keep things running smoothly.

Thursday, September 15. 2005
A beautiful blue sky… Another summer-like day in the vineyards of Château Palmer! 
Phenolic maturity continues to progress and tomorrow we’ll return to the vineyard to taste the Merlots grapes. 

Tuesday, September 20. 2005
Status check?
After a little rain (10mm) last Friday, the beautiful weather has returned: Sunshine, but above all, a northern wind that will prevent any development of Botrytis cinerea. We’re finishing the final adjustments in the vat room. The big moment will be Thursday the 22nd of September with one week of advance compared to the 2004 vintage. We’ll begin this harvest with two plots of Merlots destined for Alter Ego. Undeniably, the quality of the tannins and the fresh fruitiness of these grapes make them a natural choice for the seductive style of the other wine of Château Palmer.

Friday, September 23. 2005
Usefulness of the sorting tables
Silence yesterday on the Palmer blog! The first day of harvest required all our attention. It was a day of adjustments. 
The grapes are magnificent and we could almost say that the sorting tables are useless this year! If the bunches don’t require much selection before destemming, many stem fragments remain, however, attached to the grapes at the exit end of the destemmer. Perhaps more so this year due to the lack of water that the vines have undergone the past few months? After destemming, two conveyor belts allow us to get rid of these stem fragments and conserve the noblest material of the grapes.

Monday, September 26. 2005
The first tanks of Merlots are fermenting!
At this morning's tasting of the first tanks filled last Thursday, we discovered a slight effervescence: the yeasts have begun their work of transforming the sugar in the grapes into alcohol and carbon dioxide. The vat room now has an extraordinary fragrance that we were impatiently waiting for. We continue our meticulous pumping over (wetting the cap of the grape skins with the fermenting wine) to gently extract color, aromas and tannins.

Wednesday, September 28. 2005
The last day of picking Merlots
This evening we’ll finish the Merlots harvest with the same beautiful weather that we’ve had since we began picking. We can already say that the 2005 vintage will be a great year for Merlots at Château Palmer: the first vats where fermentation is well advanced are full of promise, the musts are extremely dark and the first tannins extracted are concentrated and smooth at the same time. Tomorrow we’ll pick the young Cabernet Sauvignons plots with the hope that the coming days are as promising as those we have already lived.

Friday, September 30. 2005
Petits verdots harvest
While we just finished harvesting the Merlots, we decided that for today, Friday the 30th of September, we would pick the three plots of Petits verdot. This old grape variety from the Médoc has a reputation for being fully ripe late in the harvest, being typically picked at the end of the season. At Château Palmer, over the past few years, we have noted that if the yield is limited (to about 35 hectoliters per hectare) Petits verdot ripens remarkably well and can be picked early in the Cabernet Sauvignon harvest. Even if this variety only represents 6% of our vineyard, it is very often an essential element to our final blend. Its peppered aromas and fresh tannins bring a capacity to age and a certain complexity to the wine of Château Palmer. The Petits verdot of the 2005 vintage is magnificent!!!

Friday, October 7. 2005
The 2005 harvest is finished!
This morning we picked the last two plots of Cabernet Sauvignons under a sun as dazzling as that of the 22nd of September.
The harvest conditions have been quite simply exceptional. Now that the last grapes are in the vat room, we can affirm loud and clear that the 2005 vintage will mark the rich history of Château Palmer.

Wednesday, October 12. 2005
The first drainings. Today we ran off our first tank of Merlots: after 8 days of fermentation and 12 days of maceration, we decided that it was time to separate the wine from the grape pomace for tank n°1.The free-run juice (the wine that runs off naturally) is separated from the press wine (the wine that remains in the grape pomace and is extracted by gentle pressing).
This first run off batch is at the height of our expectations: lots of complexity, a beautiful level of maturity that conserves a great deal of freshness. A great sign for the future!

Thomas Duroux, Director

chateau-palmer.com/fr1

Nicolas & Christophe de Bailliencourt dit Courcol - Château Gazin - Pomerol

Bordeaux 2005 harvest at Gazin,  
Tuesday, October 4 2005
The 2005 harvest, in Gazin, has been completed, as well as in most of the Pomerol appellation wineries. The grapes picking have just started in Saint-Emilion and in the Medoc.

As usual, I am going to tell you that this vintage is superb, better than the 2004, and even better than the overrated 2003, as well better than the 2002 (which is quite understandable according to the bad weather conditions we got during that summer). Indeed, this 2005 could be the best one since 1982. Some people think of the 1989 vintage. Wait and see. What is sure is that this millesime has got off to a good start ! (Don’t worry about the 2004. It is still keeping good promise to be a great vintage as well). 

You wonder why ? We started the green harvest at the beginning of July. The yield is weak, below 40hl -may be 35hl- (compared with the 47hl per hectare allowed, for this vintage, by the administration). But we will have to wait till the end of the rackings to see which figure is the good one. During summer the weather conditions were excellent, with a precocious flowering (first flower on May the 23rd !) followed by a véraison (when the bunches are suddenly turning read because of a sugar migration into the grapes), which ended early August. During this period rainfalls occured on due time to « refresh » the vines. 2005 is a dry year with less than 400mm of rain, so far. This drought was only a problem for the corn producers ! 

Early September (on the 9th and 10th) worrying heavy rainfalls occured, but the downpour stopped on Sunday. The harvest started on September 12th under drizzly weather. Then the sun came again for the whole period… And it is still there. The Merlots harvest was completed on September 20th together with the cabernets francs. The Cabernet Sauvignon were harvested on September 26th. The grapes are full ripe (which does not mean over’ripe), with a good acidity level. The wine is well balanced and full bodied which is a must to make a great wine when you have a natural 13.5 degree. (Our wines normally reach 12.5 degree). The sorting tables were not really useful except to remove some leaves and stones sticked to the bottom of the picking baskets. 

Presently the vats offer a delicious nose of fresh and ripe fruit. The color is superb and, after several pumping overs, already inky. The point is now how to keep this wine its freshness, its complexity and avoid an «overjammed » blackcurrant and cherry wine. Indeed, we know that such wines please the tasters when showing them, as futures, in March, but are not ageing well. This means they do not have the structure to age properly and are not getting more and more complexity as ageing… showing only oaky fragrances and offering tasteless fatty mouth. The malolatic fermentation started, for the first Merlots vats, in a set of new casks. By mid November we will know the truth about the 2005 quality.

http://www.chateau-gazin.com/

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Fabien Teitgen - Florence Cathiard - Château Smith-Haut-Lafitte

Pessac-Léognan, Graves

The Bordeaux 2005 vintage at Château Smith-Haut-Lafitte
After a dry, cold winter and accumulated rainfall of 100 mm in January, February, and March – as compared to 252 mm in 2004 and 170 mm in 2000 (figures from the Château Smith-Haut-Lafitte weather station) – the month of April was wetter, totalling 117 mm of precipitation. Four months of very dry weather then set in, with only 69 mm of rain (as opposed to 228 mm in 2004 and 222 mm in 2000). This means that total combined precipitation as of January 2005 was 284 mm, compared to 590 mm in 2004 ,541 in 2003 and 516 in 2000. It is thus hardly surprising that water restrictions have been imposed in the Bordeaux region, it is forbidden to water lawns and plants, and emergency financial relief is being discussed for farmers. 

Of course, temperature also has an essential influence on ripening. Drought and heat are often spoken of in the same breath. However, while 2005 is a very dry year, it is not an especially hot one. If we compare accumulated temperatures in 2003 (3,746° C ) and 2005 ( 3,231° C), it is clear that 2005 is much more dry than it is hot. 

These weather conditions obviously affected vine growth as well as ripening. Hot weather tends to produce grapes with higher sugar, but lower acidity (as was the case in 2003). Vintages that are less hot generally have more acidity, providing balance and freshness to our wines, especially the whites. 

Drought conditions are a real problem for young wines that have not developed a sufficiently deep root system to find water in the subsoil. Certain young vines (5 years old) in half of a plot at Smith-Haut-Lafitte and a plot at Cantelys are showing signs of dehydration: small grapes and ‘floppy’ leaves. 

However, the old vines on the Smith-Haut-Lafitte plateau have deep roots and reduced vigour. Their low yields have protected them from major hydric stress. This is why we concentrated most of our green harvesting on plots of young vines on both estates, leaving just 6 bunches per vine. 

Drought conditions are fortunately the enemy of mould and rot, especially grey rot. The vines are extremely healthy at present. There is no rot anywhere. Furthermore, our use of organic compost over the past 8 years, our traditional viticultural methods, and our avoidance of chemical weed killers has undoubtedly contributed to our vines’ natural resistance to disease. 

The flowering took place quickly and evenly. We did some leaf thinning on the east-facing side of the vines, and the véraison (colour change) took place as expected (starting on July 20th for the white wines, and finishing with Petits verdot in mid-August). The canes have already become mature and the pips are becoming lignified. The potential alcohol of Sauvignons Gris at Château Smith-Haut-Lafitte was already over 12.5° on August 23rd. 

The fruit is very healthy, acidity is good, the grapes are ripening nicely, and they are quite tasty. In short, we have all the hallmarks of a beautiful crop.

Our unique terroir at Smith-Haut-Lafitte is perfect at regulating water supply, providing the necessary nourishment to old vines (average age of 35 years) deep down. Château Cantelys has resisted better than in 2003. It is a fact that water regimens vary from one estate to another, and we are very fortunate at Smith-Haut-Lafitte. However, let us wait until the end of the harvest before making any definitive pronouncements. 

We began picking white wine grapes by the Sauvignons Gris on Monday September 5th. Until this date if the alcoholic degree was high, the phenolic maturity was not still here. We have picked the Sauvignons Blancs and the 1st juices are superb, showing ripe fruits as apricot and bush peach.

After the 1st pressings, the musts are rich and well balanced ( natural potential alcohol: 13.5-14 and total acidity : 4-4.5 ) .We have now put into the cellar all the whites and the young Merlots. We waited the week end of the 24th of September to pick the old Merlots to let the skins gaining in phenolic maturity. We have stopped the harvest of cabernet sauvignon because of the very good weather conditions (fresh at night and excellent light during the day). We are waiting a few days before harvesting the last parcels with 110 pickers so we can go fast as soon as the weather will be changing. 

Thursday, October 5th, 2005 -Fabien Teitgen, Technical Director 

http://www.smith-haut-lafitte.com/fr/sommaire.html

Weather during the 2005 growing season was extremely dry with only 487 mm of rain between Nov. 2004 and Oct. 2005. Breaking previous records, this amounts to less than 40% of an average year with only two months out of 12 with average rainfall. 2005 is thus ranked as the second driest year after 1897 (after 1906 and just ahead of 1989, both of which were great years at Yquem). Temperatures, as has often been the case over past 20 years, were much higher than average. 2005 was the 5th hottest vintage in 110 years (behind 2003, 1949, 1921 and 1899, all of which were very great vintages).

The grapes were evenly distributed on the vines and didn't necessitate green harvesting. The hot weather prevalent in early summer became more measured in August. This lowered the risk of hydric stress, while maintening precious acid levels. The first week of September was dry and hot. This was followed by tepid showers from the 8th to the 12th which set the stage for an explosion of botrytis. Fortunately, however, a very cool and windy week from Sept. 13th limited the spread of noble rot and stopped things from spinning out of control.

The harvest began on September 19th and 20th with small quantities of Sauvignon grapes that were already very concentrated. This first quick wave of picking (100 hectares covered in just two days) enabled us to leave perfectly ripe grapes on the vine, and gave botrytis cinerea time to develop throughout the vineyard. Temperatures rose again from the 26th to the 30th of September, and we began a second wave of picking on early-maturing plots with gravel soil, once again mostly Sauvignon. This second wave would prove to yield a considerable amount of fruit.

Ideal weather continued and a third wave of picking began between October 3rd and 5th during which we finished picking practically all the grapes in those plots ready to be harvested. A pause lasting until October 8th enabled grapes on the later-ripening clay soil plots on the Northern and Eastern slopes to reach full maturity. 

The 4th wave of picking lasted from October 8th to the 12th. This took place in the heart of the estate. The juice from these plots of Sémillon grapes displayed a rare and impressively concentrated aromatic purity. The showers on October 12th and 13th brought about a new burst of Botrytis on the rest of the crop. The weather was almost summerlike at this time. The remaining grapes became concentrated very quickly and the harvest continued from October 24th to the 28th. 

In conclusion, 2005 is an extremely promising vintage. Every separate plot was able to develop at its own thythme and concentration was absolutely optimum in all parts of the vineyard. Nothing was forced or rushed because of the weather, or due to noble rot proliferating at breakneck speed. This enormous potential will be brought into focus after careful blending. This promises to be a passionate exercice in light of a vintage that is so rich, diverse and complex.

Francis Mayeur - Technical Director of Château d'Yquem

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Sincerely Alain Bringolf

Harvest 2004 - Harvest 2003 - Harvest 2002 - Harvest 2001

Grapes and Varietals - Regions