2005 Château Grand-Puy-Lacoste, Pauillac, Bordeaux
Critics reviews
The 2005 is taking its time to come around fully, and this will still improve over the next five to 10 years, but it is starting to live up to expectations. It is packed with truffles, tar, cigar box, soy, black tea, campfire smoke, and smoked earth. A classic Grand-Puy-Lacoste from an effortlessly balanced vintage. Harvest September 22 to October 5, 70% new oak.
Drink 2022 - 2040
Jane Anson, Decanter.com (March 2021)
The Château Grand Puy Lacoste 2005 has a brilliant, classic pencil-lead nose that is Pauillac through and through. There is no messin’ about here. The palate is very well-defined, with excellent acidity, great depth of black fruit and an astonishingly precise finish that just takes your breath away. Is it the best 2005 of the vintage? Not quite, but it belongs in the top tier. Factor in value for money; I would be happy sitting on a big pile of this in my cellar to drink over the rest of my lifetime and the afterlife, if that exists, too.
Drink 2020 - 2060
Neil Martin, Wine Advocate (February 2015)
Tasted blind. Lustrous dark crimson. Not much nose. Thick and sweet, with the tannins well melded. Pungent, cordite quality. A good mid-term stage reached in its evolution whereby it’s drinkable but has lots left to give.
Drink 2016 - 2040
Jancis Robinson MW, JancisRobinson.com (March 2017)
A fabulous GPL. Perhaps better than the legendary 1982? It shows laser-guide precision on the palate with currants, cedar, mint, flowers and chocolate aromas. Full-bodied and extremely finely textured on the palate, lasting for minutes. A joy to drink now. Get some.
James Suckling, JamesSuckling.com (November 2015)
The brilliant 2005 Grand-Puy-Lacoste exhibits classic Pauillac aromas, creme de cassis flavours, and stony/floral notes. Proprietor Xavier Borie has created a wine that should rival the brilliant 1982, 1990, 1996, and 2000. Full-bodied with sweet tannin and superb length (a 40+ second finish), the purity of this beauty’s black currant fruit is something to behold.
Anticipated maturity: 2013 - 2030
Robert M. Parker, Jr., Wine Advocate (April 2008)
Medium red. Very ripe aromas of plum and musky brown spices; redder in character and less precise than the 2006. Then big, sweet and plump on the palate, with full, mellow flavours of red berries, tobacco and mocha, plus a light smoked meat note. Finishes with sweet tannins and lingering, fully ripe fruit. This is showing its lush side today and is hiding its underlying structure.
The team here harvested Grand Puy Lacoste and Haut Batailley from September 21 until October 4, stopping twice for a half-day: once due to rain and the second time to do more leaf-pulling. Director Francois-Xavier Borie did a bit of reverse osmosis for the cabernet in 2007 but avoided saignee, then fermented a bit cooler than usual, with less remontage.
Both his Grand Puy Lacoste and Haut Batailley will go into bottle with moderate alcohol levels because, he said, "we can't have too much alcohol for the structure of the vintage."
Stephen Tanzer, Vinous.com (May 2008)
About this WINE
Chateau Grand-Puy-Lacoste
Château Grand-Puy-Lacoste is a 5ème Cru Classé Pauillac estate which has for many years been consistently outperforming its classification. Grand-Puy-Lacoste is located a couple of kilometres west of the town of Pauillac and is owned and run by François-Xavier Borie.
Grand-Puy-Lacoste's 90 hectares of vines (Cabernet Sauvignon 75%, Merlot 25%) are in one block surrounding the substantial 19th century château and lie on deep gravel beds over limestone. The grapes are fermented in temperature-controlled stainless steel vats and the wine is then matured in oak barriques (50% new) for 18 months.
Grand-Puy-Lacoste combines marvellous cigar box perfume with rich blackcurrant and cassis fruit and velvety power which is the epitome of top class Pauillac at its very best.
Pauillac
Pauillac is the aristocrat of the Médoc boasting boasting 75 percent of the region’s First Growths and with Grand Cru Classés representing 84 percent of Pauillac's production.
For a small town, surrounded by so many familiar and regal names, Pauillac imparts a slightly seedy impression. There are no grand hotels or restaurants – with the honourable exception of the establishments owned by Jean-Michel Cazes – rather a small port and yacht harbour, and a dominant petrochemical plant.
Yet outside the town, , there is arguably the greatest concentration of fabulous vineyards throughout all Bordeaux, including three of the five First Growths. Bordering St Estèphe to the north and St Julien to the south, Pauillac has fine, deep gravel soils with important iron and marl deposits, and a subtle, softly-rolling landscape, cut by a series of small streams running into the Gironde. The vineyards are located on two gravel-rich plateaux, one to the northwest of the town of Pauillac and the other to the south, with the vines reaching a greater depth than anywhere else in the Médoc.
Pauillac's first growths each have their own unique characteristics; Lafite Rothschild, tucked in the northern part of Pauillac on the St Estèphe border, produces Pauillac's most aromatically complex and subtly-flavoured wine. Mouton Rothschild's vineyards lie on a well-drained gravel ridge and - with its high percentage of Cabernet Sauvignon - can produce (in its best years) Pauillac's most decadently rich, fleshy and exotic wine.
Latour, arguably Bordeaux's most consistent First Growth, is located in southern Pauillac next to St Julien. Its soil is gravel-rich with superb drainage, and Latour's vines penetrate as far as five metres into the soil. It produces perhaps the most long-lived wines of the Médoc.
Recommended Châteaux
Ch. Lafite-Rothschild, Ch. Latour, Ch. Mouton-Rothschild, Ch. Pichon-Longueville Baron, Ch. Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande, Ch. Lynch-Bages, Ch. Grand-Puy-Lacoste, Ch, Pontet-Canet, Les Forts de Latour, Ch. Haut-Batailley, Ch. Batailley, Ch. Haut-Bages Libéral.
Merlot
The most widely planted grape in Bordeaux and a grape that has been on a relentless expansion drive throughout the world in the last decade. Merlot is adaptable to most soils and is relatively simple to cultivate. It is a vigorous naturally high yielding grape that requires savage pruning - over-cropped Merlot-based wines are dilute and bland. It is also vital to pick at optimum ripeness as Merlot can quickly lose its varietal characteristics if harvested overripe.
In St.Emilion and Pomerol it withstands the moist clay rich soils far better than Cabernet grapes, and at it best produces opulently rich, plummy clarets with succulent fruitcake-like nuances. Le Pin, Pétrus and Clinet are examples of hedonistically rich Merlot wines at their very best. It also plays a key supporting role in filling out the middle palate of the Cabernet-dominated wines of the Médoc and Graves.
Merlot is now grown in virtually all wine growing countries and is particularly successful in California, Chile and Northern Italy.
When is a wine ready to drink?
We provide drinking windows for all our wines. Alongside the drinking windows there is a bottle icon and a maturity stage. Bear in mind that the best time to drink a wine does also depend on your taste.
Not ready
These wines are very young. Whilst they're likely to have lots of intense flavours, their acidity or tannins may make them feel austere. Although it isn't "wrong" to drink these wines now, you are likely to miss out on a lot of complexity by not waiting for them to mature.
Ready - youthful
These wines are likely to have plenty of fruit flavours still and, for red wines, the tannins may well be quite noticeable. For those who prefer younger, fruitier wines, or if serving alongside a robust meal, these will be very enjoyable. If you choose to hold onto these wines, the fruit flavours will evolve into more savoury complexity.
Ready - at best
These wines are likely to have a beautiful balance of fruit, spice and savoury flavours. The acidity and tannins will have softened somewhat, and the wines will show plenty of complexity. For many, this is seen as the ideal time to drink and enjoy these wines. If you choose to hold onto these wines, they will become more savoury but not necessarily more complex.
Ready - mature
These wines are likely to have plenty of complexity, but the fruit flavours will have been almost completely replaced by savoury and spice notes. These wines may have a beautiful texture at this stage of maturity. There is lots to enjoy when drinking wines at this stage. Most of these wines will hold in this window for a few years, though at the very end of this drinking window, wines start to lose complexity and decline.
Buying options
Add to wishlist
Description
The 2005 is taking its time to come around fully, and this will still improve over the next five to 10 years, but it is starting to live up to expectations. It is packed with truffles, tar, cigar box, soy, black tea, campfire smoke, and smoked earth. A classic Grand-Puy-Lacoste from an effortlessly balanced vintage. Harvest September 22 to October 5, 70% new oak.
Drink 2022 - 2040
Jane Anson, Decanter.com (March 2021)
wine at a glance
Delivery and quality guarantee