2005 Le Bon Pasteur @ 50% off!

2005 Le Bon Pasteur

Avg US Retail Price: $133.00

Winestore Price: $67.50

Save 49% or $65.50 a bottle!!

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There are aspects to my job that sound wonderful; but it can be more of a slog than a celebration.

Each year, if my time and money allows it, I arrange to attend one of the annual Bordeaux tastings, organized by the Bordeaux Wine Bureau and held in a faraway city. My reward is an expensive hotel room the size of a hall closet, along with the unending joys of airplane travel. The tasting is in a banquet room filled with one hundred something Bordeaux estates and a human press of distributors, salesmen, posers and pontificators.

At past tastings, certain legendary vintages have proved more myth than legend. 2000 was heralded as “the greatest ever”. More like tannic, bitter, overripe and hot; that’s my take.

2003 was, what’s the phrase? Oh, yes, “the greatest ever”. So the pundits cried again, forgetting the 2000’s. I recall the 2003 tasting as one unhappy trudge through a room of near drunks, bellowing about the greatness of each wine. My response was similar to the 2000’s: these were wines that tasted overripe, green and bitter, and today most will seem rather un-Bordeaux-like. The 2003’s had their bright moments, I’ll admit, not least of which were the Sauternes: dessert wines of power, sweetness and downright deliciousness.

So what about the 2005’s, which some called “the greatest ever”. Could it be so? 2005 is more or less everything it has been gim-cracked up to be. These are wines of power and richness, but without the green and bitter astringency that the other high temperature vintages (2001 and 2003) have offered.

With Le Bon Pasteur and many of the other 2005's you can still find, there is a lot of fruit and plenty of structure. So you can save it, drink it, or heck, you can just brag about it. I've already got my bottles...

Cheers,

Doug Frost, MS MW
Master Sommelier & Master of Wine