Château Cantemerle 2005

The 2005 vintage in Haut-Médoc

Vintage benchmark: 97/100 (appellation benchmark, not a score for this wine)

Vintage character: Drought without any halt in ripening, together with cool nights, gave a legendary vintage: concentrated, with firm tannins and very long aging potential.

Overall reading of the year’s season across Haut-Médoc. An estate can depart from it sharply, in frost or hail years, where two neighbours did not make the same vintage. What this particular wine actually gave is on its technical sheet and in the scores above.

Tasting

Superb color, brilliant and a very deep dark red, which marks the great vintage. The nose is still a little reserved, but taffeta tannins give the palate this elegance and velvety feel specific to the Cantemerle terroir. The opulence of the aromas combines with a great delicacy of structure, and a lot of freshness on the finish. A great classic, which deserves to be waited for, or to be decanted two hours before serving.

Blend of the 2005 vintage

Figures from the 2005 sheet

• 13 % vol.Alcohol
• 30 yrsVine age
• 400,000 bottlesProduction

Winemaking

The production of each plot is vinified separately in large oak vats favoring a slow and gentle extraction of tannins.

Ageing

The wines are then aged in barrels for twelve months, then lightly clarified before being bottled at the château.

Terroir

The soil at Cantemerle is siliceous gravel. This gravel, the product of the ancient erosion of the Pyrenees by the Garonne, is one of the essential elements of a quality terroir. It makes for poor soils, and the vine must struggle if it is to produce concentrated grapes. These soils of sand and pebbles are also very free-draining and play an active part in ripening the grapes, since they reflect the sun's rays and retain at night the heat accumulated during the day. As they age, the vines send their roots deeper into the soil and express more fully the typicity of the terroir that carries them.