2005 Wine from France

View From The Cellar, 97 points: The 2005 Cristal is a legend in the making, but this wine is still very young and closed and some extended bottle age will be necessary to really allow all of the multi-faceted elements here to blossom and come to the...

View From The Cellar, 95 points: The 2005 Comtes de Champagne Brut Rosé from Champagne Taittinger is a blend of seventy percent pinot noir and thirty percent chardonnay, with fifteen percent of the pinot being red still wine from Bouzy fruit. All of the...

Wine & Spirits, 100 points: How rare to confront a wine of this inner strength and perfect form. Grown at a 116-acre vineyard at the southern border of Pauillac, some of the vines now reaching 100 years of age on a gravel bar overlooking the...

Wine Enthusiast, 96 points: A beautifully balanced wine that exudes elegance as well as richness. It is drier than previous vintages of Cristal Rosé, yielding a bright, crisp and layered wine. Red fruits are married with orange zest and tight...

jamessuckling.com, 95 points: Concentrated and elegant with a great harmony of dry tannins and ripeness (but no hint of overripeness), this has a long finish with a lot of drive and enormous freshness. You could drink this now with red meat, but it’s...

Wine Spectator, 97 points: Displays lemon honey mineral fennel seed and lime aromas. Full-bodied this fills the mouth with lime apple tart and vanilla character. Very very intense. Fantastic. Needs time to come together. The best white from this...

Robert Parker's Wine Advocate, 95 points: 95+ This great terroir sandwiched between Vieux Château Certan, Petrus and La Fleur Petrus, on the high plateau of Pomerol, has been owned for many years by the Barrau-Badar family. Beautiful coffee, cedar wood...

Wine Enthusiast, 90 points: A full, firm, ripe wine that shows considerable style and richness. There are fine, dusty tannins, masking the full-bodied black fruits, licorice flavors, and a firm, smooth aftertaste.

TheWineCellarInsider.com, 100 points: Poke your head into a flower shop filled with roses, walk into the restaurant next door when they are serving their winter, truffle menu, end the meal with the perfect clafoutis with some licorice on the side, and light...

jebdunnuck.com, 92 points: The 2005 Coteaux d'Aix en Provence Alpilles is a beauty that shows the tighter, firmer, more focused style of the vintage. Offering a Burgundian bouquet of ripe black cherries, cedary herbs, graphite, and toasted spice...

Vinous, 92 points: (92+ points) The 2005 Talbot was picked from 22 September until 10 October. Having tasted this several times, this might be the best bottle. Deeper in colour than other vintages, it offers much more fruit: blackberry...

Decanter, 94 points: I'm not sure you need me to recap the weather conditions in 2005 as it's such a famous, and relatively recent, year. Suffice to say, it was pretty close to a perfect year, with spots of heat but generally cool evenings...