With eight properties awarded a potential 100 points in barrel by Robert Parker, the 2005 Bordeaux vintage was tipped to be one of the greatest ever produced. The wines were released at record highs: the First Growths, on average, were £3,950 per 12×75 while the 2000s had been released at less than half of that. Prices continued to rise in anticipation of Parker’s in-bottle scores two years later. By April 2008, Haut Brion 2005 had a market price of £8,800 per 12×75, while Latour 2005 reached £10,200.
Parker’s in-bottle scores, released in May 2008, were lower than expected: only two wines – Ausone and Eglise Clinet – received 100 points. With disappointing scores came falling prices: by the end of August, Haut Brion had fallen to £7,750. Today it is offered at £4,400.
In an interview with Liv-ex in 2012, Robert Parker was asked about whether there was a vintage that he had underrated. He commented: “I think there is tremendous sentiment about 2005, which many writers rated slightly better than I did. I was originally worried about the tannin levels in 2005, but the wines are so concentrated I think they will be just fine – they just need a lot of time.”
Since then, things have begun to look up for the vintage as Parker rescored several wines in the latter half of 2014. Last January, we took a look at how far the 2005s had fallen since their peak prices. The chart below shows these price changes another year on. Although the majority of wines have continued to fall, there are positive signs for those that have recently been upgraded, highlighted below in red. Mouton Rothschild, awarded 99+ by Parker in December 2014 has shown the greatest turnaround. In January 2014, it had fallen 32.5% from peak but today the gap has closed to 22.4%. Haut Bailly and Montrose were also upgraded by Parker and have shown promise in the past year. Could this represent the beginning of a change in fortune for Bordeaux’s 2005s?
