Notes:

Allen Meadows, Burghound, April 2007.A relatively deeply pitched nose of red pinot and freshly crushed berry nose nuanced by hints of spice and earth marry into textured, concentrated and sappy flavors that are moderately somber as the tannins here are also somewhat drying if not tough or aggressive. Again, I attribute the dryness to the recent mise. 89 points

Stephen Tanzer's Int'l Wine Cellar, March/April 2007.
Good full ruby-red. Deep, very ripe aromas of black cherry, plum, leather and minerals. Fat and sweet on entry, then rich and minerally in the middle palate, with slowly evolving flavors of black cherry, dark berries and bitter chocolate. Powerful for this cuvee but also aromatic and fine. Finishes with substantial but sweet tannins and excellent persistence. This will need a longer elevage. 90-93 points

Geoffroy Choppin de Janvry said that 2005 gave a “positively superb quality of fruit, particularly in the sense of fruit/acid/tannin balance. Moreover, the crop was so clean that it was almost not worth the trouble to bother sorting. .... When you have fruit this good with such ripe structural elements, the vinification is usually easy and so it was with 2005 too. For me, as good as 1999 is, 2005 is better still.†M. de Janvry was not boasting about the fruit quality because it is reflected in the quality of resulting wines and I heartily recommend these ‘05s to you.
Allen Meadows, Burghound, April 2007.