May 19, 2023 - Way passed its peak
June 13, 2021 - Agree with prior recent note. Alcohol prevalent in front palette. Not balanced. Port-like nose. Sorry that I sat on this so long. Past its prime.
March 17, 2021 - sb
Slightly turbid garnet ruby with a fair amount of age at the rim
Sweet brown sugary raspberry fruit.
Alcohol controlled, light tannins in the finish.
This is clearly on a decline but rather tasty tonight.
Hold or drink (relatively soonish)
Big YFS
November 4, 2017 - Nice ruby with slight bricking. Very open nose with candy apple dominating. Terrific balance and boy. Nice long finish, drinking perfectly. This is a great wine.
October 17, 2017 - Medium light scarlet colored.
Raspberry olive aromas
Lush dried raspberry flavors that linger on and on.
This is really quite lovely and delicious right now. Background of herbal mint, tarragon, marigold flavors. Really quite good.
Hard to imagine it getting any better
November 10, 2016 - Fully mature and ready for prime time drinking, this lushly textured, round, open treat is packed with sweet, ripe, jammy, fresh, black raspberries, kirsch, garrigue and olive tapenade.
April 28, 2016 - Tasted blind together with Vieux Donjon 2005. Both bottles were quite developes for 2005 CdP. Preferred the Vieux Donjon in style.
March 2, 2016 - Deep garnet colored.
Fairly tight on opening, but after 1 1/2 hours it opens up quite sweet raspberry and brown sugar flavors. Still with what seems like a big dose of oak on the finish, but very nice
November 7, 2015 - Given 2 hours of slow ox then decanted 1 hour prior to dinner.
Upon opening, obvious aromas of merde dominate the nose & the palate is muddy. With some air, the nose & palate clean up, leaving a nice fruit note. We press on.
During dinner, the wine has deeply pitched notes of raspberry, dark brown sugar/molasses, some leather, tobacco, herbs, and crushed stone. The palate is clean, still quite primary with racy acidity and a long mineral finish. Beautiful and on its way to something good (91-93 pts).
February 16, 2015 - Has emerged as the most atypical of the many 2005's Chateauneufs I've tasted. Crushed rock, but very much darker fruit, very much more opaque than most, and still surprisingly quite tannic. This Chateauneuf will if really well stored keep for many many years.
24 hours later still alive and well, but seems even more dark fruity. A long long life ahead for this wine.