Château Haut-Bailly 2005

The 2005 vintage in Pessac-Léognan

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 Pessac-Léognan. 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

Emile Peynaud's definition, an exceptional vintage is a vintage which is not obtained with the usual climate, applies perfectly to the case of 2005 whose power, freshness, balance and elegance make it a legendary vintage.

Blend of the 2005 vintage

Figures from the 2005 sheet

• 13 % vol.Alcohol
• 35 yrsVine age
• 80,000 bottlesProduction

Winemaking

Alcoholic fermentation lasts 8 to 10 days but vatting continues for 3 weeks, a period during which balance is sought above all. Vinification is carried out away from excessive temperatures and no excessive reheating disrupts the end of fermentation.

Ageing

16 months in barrels (50 to 65% new).

Terroir

A Grand Cru Classé at the gates of Bordeaux, Château Haut-Bailly looks out majestically over a 30-hectare vineyard in a single block, established on one of the highest gravel rises of the left bank. It benefits from an excellent gradient of the slopes, effective drainage and well-distributed ditches that carry the water away in wet years. Of the three components of terroir, the soil is the most subtle: here it combines a soil of sands mixed with gravels that slipped down in the Quaternary era with a subsoil of falun, or petrified fossil stone, which is one of its major characteristics.