2005 Cheval Blanc

Wine Details
Producer

Cheval Blanc

Place of Origin

France

Saint Émilion 1er Grand Cru Classé "A"

Bordeaux

Color

Red

Grape/Blend

46% Merlot, 48% Cabernet Franc, 6% Cabernet Sauvignon (2024 vintage)

Reviews & Tasting Notes

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Drinking Window

2025 - 2055

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Drinking Window

2021 - 2060

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2020 - 2055

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This wine was tasted as part of our 2005 Bordeaux with Stephen Tanzer and Antonio Galloni event held in October, 2015.

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The harvest was carried out late at Cheval Blanc, and in the end took three and a half weeks, with the cabernet franc coming in at the beginning of October. "The long maturation favored the cabernet franc," according to estate manager Pierre Lurton, who said that the merlot was less elegant and less precise. All the fruit from sandy soil went into the estate's second wine, Le Petit Cheval, as it was swelled by rain. "With its freshness of fruit but rather low acidity, it's hard to compare the 2007 Cheval to a past vintage," noted Lurton.

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"In 2005, we did not want to pick too ripe and lose balance," said young enologist Olivier Berrouet, the son of Jean-Claude Berrouet, long-time enologist for Petrus and the other Jean-Pierre Moueix properties. Cheval Blanc harvested between September 12 and 24, stopping for two days between the merlot and the cabernet franc. The merlot in particular came in early, as the estate believes that the window for capturing ripe but fresh merlot is short. "Later-picked merlot would have been monolithic," Berrouet claimed. The 2005 blend is 13.8%, moderate for the right bank in 2005 but high for Cheval Blanc. Extraction was intentionally gentle in 2005, said Berrouet. "The tendency in St. Emilion was to go for maximum flavor. But that was a mistake, as some of the seed tannins were underripe and a bitter taste arrived too early if you overextracted." He went on: "We all know the recipe for color, tannin and structure, and in the Bordeaux region we don't need to go too far to build the structure of our wines. But the things we can't measure are fruitiness, freshness, fleshiness and overall balance, which are the measure of great wine."