The Timeless Pleasure of Château d'Yquem
Experience the indescribable pleasure that awaits when tasting Château d'Yquem. This extraordinary wine captivates with its intricate balance and complex flavours that evolve and harmonize over time. Like the lingering silence after a Mozart masterpiece, Château d'Yquem remains on the palate, bestowing a unique and prolonged pleasure. In the poetic words of Frédéric Dard, it spreads out like a peacock's tail, leaving an enduring impression.
The pale to medium lemon-gold coloured 2005 d'Yquem opens with a provocative, mineral and earth-tinged nose of chalk dust, wet pebbles and dried wild mushrooms over a core of warm apricots, green mango, honeyed toast, ginger and pink grapefruit plus wafts of honeycomb, orange blossoms and saffron. The palate confirms the wine is still a little closed and shut down, offering achingly gorgeous glimpses at the tightly wound, intricate layers structured with a racy acid line and wonderfully creamy texture, finishing incredibly long and perfumed. This decadent flavour bomb still needs a good five to seven years in bottle before it is set to go off, but oh what a spectacle it will give then!
Everything about the 2005 growing season pointed towards a great vintage: moderate water stress, a temperate end to the summer season conducive to good acidity, alternating periods of rain and dry heat for optimum botrytisation, etc. The wine has a phenomenally complex bouquet, confirming the extraordinary quality of the vintage.