2005 Château Pavie Magnum

Description

100    Jeb Dunnuck
“Even more flamboyant and sexy than the 2000, the 2005 Pavie has everything you could ever want from a wine. Deep, inky purple-colored, an awesome perfume of cassis, blackberries, toasty oak, graphite, and incredible minerality, full body, sweet tannin, and a blockbuster finish all make for an extraordinary Saint-Emilion. It’s still a baby but offers incredible pleasure today. It’s going to last for another 3-4 decades.” (8/2018)

100   James Suckling
“This is monumental. Just a baby with a fresh and intense mouthfeel and density. Full-bodied, velvety and layered. Decadent and rich.” (1/2019)

100    Robert Parker for Wine Advocate
“Gérard Perse believes this is the greatest Pavie he’s made to date, although certainly I would argue that list includes the 2000, as well as the 2009 and 2010, among his superstars. This wine, which I had both in the 2005 horizontal report in the Wine Advocate, and at a mini-vertical with Perse at the restaurant Maison Boulud in Montreal, looks to be a 75- to 100-year wine. Dense, opaque purple to the rim, with a gorgeously promising nose of blackberries, cassis, graphite and cedar wood just beginning to emerge, it tastes more like a three-year-old than wine that is already a decade old. This beauty is intense and full-bodied, with magnificent concentration, a majestic mouthfeel and a total seamless integration of tannin, wood, alcohol, etc. Beautifully rich, full and multidimensional, this is a tour de force in winemaking and certainly one of the top dozen or so 2005 Bordeaux. Forget it for another 3-5 years and drink it over the following 50-100 years!” (8/2015)

97+    Neal Martin
“The Château Pavie 2005 has a gorgeous bouquet, very pure and refined with intense blackberry, blueberry, baking powder, violet and mineral-scented bouquet that is utterly entrancing. The palate is full-bodied with lavish ripe black cherries, blueberry and cassis fruit that lacquer the mouth. There is amazing volume and intensity here, a voluminous Pavie and yet it does not stint on precision or elegance on the finish. This is a sumptuous, ravishing, seamless wine that is irresistible and unlike Pavie-Decesse, it is just beautifully proportioned, the terroir starting to seep through as the winemaking recedes. One of the finest wines on the Right Bank.” (02/2015)

97    Antonio Galloni for Vinous
Six years have passed since I last tasted the 2005 Pavie. In that time, the wine has moved into its first plateau of maturity. Heady and explosive, the 2005 possesses tremendous richness right out of the gate. An infusion of inky dark fruit, chocolate, leather, spice, menthol and espresso greets the palate as the 2005 shows off its considerable charms. The style of the era is evident in the wine’s rich, extracted feel and strong oak inflections. My preference is to drink the 2005 now, as early signs of aromatic maturity are starting to set in. (AG) Inner quote mark (4/2021)

96    James Molesworth for Wine Spectator
“Shows a frankly roasted edge, with steeped fig and boysenberry fruit inlaid liberally with roasted apple wood and juniper notes. The structure is a touch austere, which leaves it standing a bit apart from the core of fruit. Very weighty in feel, this is layered and dense, but also more on the muscular, extracted side of the ledger. Perhaps this is in a tough phase today. Will certainly hang around for a while, so there’s time to wait it out.” (2017)